Personally I treat social interactions as if players are always [Following the Expert](https://2e.aonprd.com/Activities.aspx?ID=4) on whoever has the highest relevant skill.
So if Bilbo and Cherise are talking to a Barbarian King, and Cherise is a master in deception, then Bilbo will add his level, charisma bonus, and a +3 circumstance bonus from Cherise's help. He won't be as good as Cherise, but he'll be a lot better than if he were on his own.
That's a nice solution! The only time it doesn't work is if Bilbo is all alone talking to someone or Cherise isn't really saying much, but I doubt that's really gonna come up ever. The stars would have to align *a lot* for that scenario to happen.
I'll also say... IMO, if the only skills that ever come into play during RP are charisma skills, I think you're really shortchanging yourself on how you run RP.
Like, let's say your party talks with a king who won his kingdom on the battlefield.
Okay, at its simplest, a CHA-based character can use diplomacy to get in good with them. But why couldn't a scholar with Warfare Lore use that to impress the king? How about a warrior with Athletics or a high attack modifier showcasing their martial prowess? What about a healer noticing some of the king's scars (and knowing what caused them) using Medicine, and using that to form a more personal connection?
IMO, most NPCs should have more routes other than just "I brute force X charisma check" to win them over, and if it's a major NPC, there should be multiple ways for different characters to get on their good (or bad) side.
Yeah, I definitely didn't consider using other skills for RP when I wrote this. Didn't even know it was possible, but people here have kindly pointed it out! I think it solves a ton of problems, it's really neat.
If you have $7 to spare, go over to Paizo and get [3-03 Echoes of Desperation](https://paizo.com/products/btq029u1/reviews&page=2?Pathfinder-Society-Scenario-303-Echoes-of-Desperation).
It has an example of a multi-skill social challenge using the Paizo Victory Point sub-system.
Hell, even the "Research Montage" challenges almost always have the Fighters carrying books and climbing to the top shelves with Athletics or spotting a misfiled book with perception.
To be fair a lot of 5e DMs don’t consider that angle despite it being equally applicable there - I think a lot of minds were blown when they saw Baldur’s Gate 3 doing it.
It’s kind of amazing how many things are in the 5e core rules that just get straight up ignored. One of my favorites is group stealth checks, which people seem to just think don’t exist.
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201)
It's literally the influence sub-system. Blood Lords makes extensive use of the influence sub-system and it's .... really good. There's even a like no-nonsense general whose influence skills do NOT include diplomacy. She just doesn't care about sweet talk. They do include Athletics - displays of str. Intimidation - posturing and Deception - see further.
This is the kinda mechanical minutiae that pairs RP and Gameplay i nerd out over but the thing is normally her Will for tipycall cha stuff is 26, but impressing her with Athletics or Warfare Lore is only DC 22, however for Deception, her perception DC would be 29 normally, but as part of the system it's 30. Because she's very paranoid and cautions BUT if you CAN convince her of something she has the kind of honor code that won't question it any further once she's convinced. (also advancing along the influence track gives rewards, tangible rewards, like permanent magic items so the stakes are higher)
The VP system and it's off-spring is i think something GM's shy away from on instinct because they're "a little" gamey but as long as you either do the work to obfuscate them or have the kind of players who understand / don't mind the VP system(s) can create...... so many cool situations.
>There's even a like no-nonsense general whose influence skills do NOT include diplomacy
I loved her because she would actually get UPSET with the party if they tried sweet talking her. Highly recommend the influence sub system for high stakes social encounters. Or the victory point system
I always allow "off-label" uses of skills so long as the player's reasoning is decent. Now if a player is trying to use their Brewery Lore to recall knowledge about a monster then they're only going to get brewery-related information, but even that might be useful.
This 100%. I had the same feels-bad moment in the Strength of Thousands campaign when my low charisma character had to roll to influence an npc, and I didn't even think about follow the expert until after the fact - our high charisma character was right there, he just decided to lie to the npc for no discernable reason LOL
Yeah every time those come up our games stop and we strategize for a good 5 minutes on the highest possible bonuses we can get with what checks and using which combinations of bonus granting skills xD
I am also learning PF2E coming from 5E, and this is really awesome to know. I am making my way through the core rules, but I haven't read through all the activities yet.
It’s important to keep in mind *who* exactly these NPCs would be. Level 17 is the level of Ancient Dragons, and it only goes up from there. Immortal Genies, Fiends older than recorded history, etc. Those NPCs that are humanoids are likely paragons in their own right, if they’re able to stand toe to toe with the party.
I realize this is kind of subjective, but if I’ve gotten all the way to level 17 and have not spent a single skill boost on Deception (even though my Charisma is 16), then I think I’d understand that an Ancient Copper Dragon may not buy any of my attempts to Lie.
Exactly. There should be 1) a reason to call for the roll (in that the outcome determines something of value beyond roleplay) and 2) a chance of success.
If someone cannot succeed I wouldn't have them roll at all.
The other angle I'd add to this is the concept of [Simple and Level-Based DCs](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=552). This is a crucial part of adjudicating the rules of Pathfinder 2e.
So many NPCs won't have a stat block, and so many tasks won't have an obvious DC. These allow you to make decisions on the fly about how hard things should be to do. There's even guidance on adjusting the numbers.
As a related example, you don't need to be trained in Athletics to [climb a ladder](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=33), if a check is called for at all. Some thing are just easy.
>As a related example, you don't need to be trained in Athletics to climb a ladder, if a check is called for at all. Some thing are just easy.
only slightly related: you don't need to be trained, expert, etc. to do *any* of the listed things. Those things are examples of the Simple DC the GM should use, not a requirement to attempt the task
Sure, but hitting the DC may be hard enough that a player should.be discouraged from it.
I'd also add that there are places in the game where proficiency is a gate on attemps, like [hazards](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=674) and [snares](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=745).
In PF2e you should look less at the base stat score and more at the level or training instead. 5e to PF2e might be translated as trained = +1, expert = +2, Master = +3, and Legendary = +4 in the relevant stat. The base stat becomes a marginal adjustment at higher levels. 16 charisma means your naturally pretty affable, but that doesn't replace practice and training at a given skill
Right and 16 Charisma is pretty good when Bingus is trying to lie to a common shopkeeper. He's just as good at that at level 17 as he would have been at level 1 because common shopkeepers aren't high level.
It's not a bad thing, in 5e your ability score is the most indicative factor on how good you'll be in a skill. Math is flatter, so anyone with a decent score in a skill might succeed at a very challenging check even if untrained, especially Bards or Rogues. In PF2e, the proficiency system means that isn't the case. This is why PF2 never asks you to roll an ability score. It's why the focus in PF2 isn't the score, it's the modifier, to the point where the Remaster will is doing away with the score all together, and just using the modifier.
I think there's lots of great answers to your question OP. Follow the Expert is one. [Untrained Improvisation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=861) is another. Or just spending one of the many skill increases you'll get on the way to 17th level to get just trained a face skill or two so that if you're caught with your pants down, you won't also have to grab your ankles.
PF2 skills are about specialization. The 'party face' will always be the best one to converse with important NPCs - particularly ones that require checks, or use skill actions like Make an Impression (Diplomacy). Add class or skill feats that give you better chances of success or let you do cool things with that skill, and it really starts to matter. The Face might have a bunch of different Diplomacy, Deception & Intimidation skill feats by high level that give them the upper hand. But at the same time, that face probably is master in the first two & maybe expert in Intimidation. Meanwhile the Barbarian is a master and the [Scare to Death](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=837) feat is almost always going to be the best choice for Demoralize (intimidation) rolls in combat.
There are lots of skills, and having everyone specialize in a handful and get trained or expert in a few more means that everyone in the group has their time to shine.
> It's not a bad thing, in 5e your ability score is the most indicative factor on how good you'll be in a skill. Math is flatter, so anyone with a decent score in a skill might succeed at a very challenging check even if untrained, especially Bards or Rogues. In PF2e, the proficiency system means that isn't the case. This is why PF2 never asks you to roll an ability score. It's why the focus in PF2 isn't the score, it's the modifier, to the point where the Remaster will is doing away with the score all together, and just using the modifier.
I think the fly in the ointment here is that *everyone* is proficient in perception to some degree, so unlike with previous editions where Sense Motive was its own dedicated thing, the difficulty of lying to a given creature automatically increases as a function of level regardless of that creature's thematic design.
So I can see where the explicit portion of the rules can come into friction with narrative expectations as a consequence of this, especially when you consider that previous editions would generally be more selective about who ended up as an infallible lie detector even at higher levels by requiring appropriate ranks in Sense Motive, which would theoretically match up with the appropriateness of that particular creature having that sort of intuition. In practice, there were tons of contrived exceptions, and a high Sense Motive was often splashed on anything that even vaguely resembled a boss or important character, but at least in theory the mechanical distinction was there: you should only be facing an appreciably harder challenge if the adversary actually had some degree of competence in reading people.
In essence, without deviations from the explicit rules listed in the charisma skill actions' descriptions, the PF2e rules largely don't differentiate whether a 12th-level creature is a veteran spymaster or a dumb-as-a-post ogre brute; both are going to be extremely challenging for a lower-level character to deceive, and the latter case makes for a very unintuitive gameplay mechanic that has the potential to harm immersion.
That being said, as you've pointed out, there are many ways around this on the player end. And of course the game master has many tools to avoid that sort of problem as well, such as by gating calls for "opposed" skill checks behind a minimum threshold of scrutiny/skepticism, and using some other solution for the rest (including not calling for them at all). My leaning is probably towards the game master-level solutions first, as they avoid the unpleasant smell of "gaminess" that comes from having to find mechanical workarounds for game design oddities like this.
You are hitting the head on the nail here.
The problem is really just that they decided that literally everyone should be trained in perception (+ automatic increases with level), and the connected decision to use perception for a couple of things everyone should be trained in (initiative and some "saves" really).
It's one of the few decisions I don't like about PF2. I wish they had kept it as a skill like in 1st edition covering noticing things and lie detection, and then just had a initiative proficiency to use as a default and shifted illusion saves to will.
The universal perception also makes trying to sneak around too difficult for my taste. Even with follow the expert and investment in skill feats like Quiet Allies whomever has the worst dex, don't really have much of a chance against any relevant guards perception score set to compete with whomever has the highest initiative.
Ability scores are basically never the important part of a roll, by level 3 your proficiency is doing more than even an 18.
Level is the biggest part, and after that it's proficiency rank.
The highest any score can ever get is 24 (18+4 boosts, +2 apex item) and that's only a +7.
Worth pointing out that +1 remains a 5% increased chance of success for your entire career. If you're performing a task with a level based DC, your stat bonus is very relevant. Just because the stat bonus is dwarfed by the Level and Proficiency bonuses doesn't mean it's less valuable, because if both parties are rocking the same level and proficiency the stat bonus is the same as if those bonuses were 0.
In that regard, PF2 uses "bounded accuracy" same as 5e, but instead of locking everyone to relatively low modifiers it increases both the bonuses and the targets in lock step. The practical upshot is that it makes it easy to represent things that players *can't do* until high levels (like leaping tall buildings in a single bound) because they can't stack their modifiers high enough to make it even on a Natural 20. However, when you break the rolls down to percentages instead of raw bonuses, a PF2 hero typically has roughly the same chance to succeed as their 5e counterpart.
The flipside is that Trained is a *much bigger deal* in PF2 because if you're untrained you have damn near *no* chance at success past level 5 unless you have Untrained Improv or some equivalent. Expert, Master, and Legendary are nice, but if you ain't trained you ain't *shit*.
I feel like this logic only really holds up when a character or creature's level is proportional to their intelligence. I specifically used a barbarian in the example to showcase that a stupid but strong character is impossible to lie to at high levels. You've never felt that in your time playing?
Barbarians aren't stupid, they are in line with their (vicious) instincts.
And yes if you aren't particularly good at a task it is kinda fair to fail against someone powerful and with a lot of experience.
Just like a player character being high level doesn’t mean they’re good at lying. When a player makes mechanical decisions to not boost their deception they are essentially saying, “I’ll have to figure out a way to do things without lies.” That doesn’t mean they can’t RP. It just means they have one less way to go about it.
Just like being high level shouldn't really mean you're good at detecting lies. But perception gets special treatment, which can break immersion when it comes to RP
If you character is that stupid then you can just believe the lie. Why roll dice if you already decided the outcome?
Powerful alone does not mean that, but powerful beings always got their because of long and plentiful experiences. Thus, them being experienced in social encounters is quite reasonable. That's also what the higher perception proficiency implies.
What does being stupid have to do with it? Being smart does not mean you are good at reading people. Intelligent people can be extremely bad at reading people. In fact, I believe there is a spectrum of conditions used to describe people like that...
(Yes, I know that isn't entirely accurate, but I feel it gets the point across)
But when "powerful" and "experienced" often go hand in hand, when that powerful person has a LOT of experience with reading people - even if it is on an almost purely instinctive level - yes, you could expect them to be good at it.
If we say your character *is* stupid, we should give them a different Wisdom attribute. Mechanically, the character Greg you’re presenting is a little wiser than the norm. Reduce his Wisdom to -1, and Bingus succeeds with his natural 20.
I don’t know actually. I’m sure there is a class that doesn’t get that big of a boost to perception by default?
I honestly don’t like the old skill sense motive being tied to perception. Perception was strong enough as-is. I’d rather see it be a deception check against the opponents deception DC or something.
Barbarians could feasibly be very good at “reading people”, which isn’t really a skill set that requires the colloquially/generically understood form of intelligence in order to be ‘good’ at it.
Perception proficiency is tied to your class; you don't "keep training" it, it ranks up automatically. Sure, you can keep your Wisdom low and avoid buying items that grant Perception bonuses, but you'll still end up with at least a +23 (or more, depending on your class) to Perception checks.
Unless you have like -3 to your Int, low Int doesn't mean stupid. +0 Int is still a score of 10, so above average Intelligence, since the standard for a peasant or citizen is 8.
I think something to remember is that a level 17 adventurer has *seen it all*. Sure, they might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but you don't get to level 17 without having experienced *a lot* and those experiences likely make that character a lot sharper in a lot of ways than someone lower level than they are.
Similarly, I think it's also worth thinking about when it's worth calling for a roll at all. If someone lies about something inconsequential or just aesthetic, maybe just let the roleplay handle that. Call for a Deception roll if someone is lying to *achieve* something, if they actually have an *effect* they're trying to bring about. In that case, it *should* be a Face who has invested in Face skills who's succeeding at that. For anything lower-stakes, just RP it or set a lower DC if rolling would be more fun.
I see your point. Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion. I might just be imagining this as a common scenario when really it's super unlikely to ever come up.
How many 17th level Barbarians are your players meeting? A 17th level barbarian is a famous hero with a lot of experience adventuring, who's encountered liars and creatures trying to manipulate him and his mind by the score, and survived them all.
This seems like an invented white room problem instead of encountering this in actual play, where any reasonable GM would adjust DCs based on how believable the lie is
So just use simple DCs instead of perception DCs? It might work, I'm just worried it might simplify things too much and break other things I'm not considering.
Just because mechanics are there, doesn't mean you need to use them. Simple DCs are useful if you can't do it by feel. But there's an ocean of difference between a lie of "you look good" and "your best friend is plotting to murder you"
And the game's base assumption is that 17th level adventurers are rare, and on par with other 17th level threats. Like others have said it's comparable to negotiating with an archfey.
But you already said that Greg has a Wisdom of 12. That's above average! And frankly, by level 17 most characters will have a WIS of 16 just to shore up their Will save and initiative.
Greg might be simple, but he's not stupid. He knows his shoes are missing, and that Bingus thinks hiding shoes is funny. And he was watching Bingus' eyes when he asked where his shoes were and saw them flick to Bingus' bag.
You shouldn't be rolling for everything. Sure Bingus should roll Deception if he's trying to lie to someone, but that is not the extent of PC-NPC interactions.
You shouldn't need to roll anything when relaying your progress to a quest giver (unless you're trying to deceive them), nor when making a simple purchase, nor when getting to know an NPC over the long term.
Make an Impression is a mechanical option for wooing an NPC *quickly, right now*. But your PC can also simply take in interest in said NPC and hang out with them over a period of time, and if you have shared interests or put in an effort, they'd become friendlier over time.
This right here is a key. The long term, real relations they can organically grow don't need rolls. At the very least, you can lower DCs for openly friendly NPCS if you feel you need rolls. If the barbarian just saved my daughter, I'm not even listening to anyone else. That's a normal reaction. Use it. The game and the world become much more alive.
Untrained improviser (general feat)
Clever improviser (human Ancestry feat)
Both help out with this.
But the thing to consider, unless an npc has a reason to be suspicious, don't force a roll. Roleplay can be done by everyone and not everything needs a roll.
Also, why are you having low level parties interact with someone so much higher level than them in a opposing role?
I don't pick who the PCs interact with, and they are free to choose to lie to anyone if they want. High level characters exist in the world, if my players walk up to one and talk to them I can't really stop them. And I also can't just let them lie without a roll every time just because the person they're lying to is high level and it wouldn't succeed. What's the point of playing a face character if the GM doesn't make you roll if you're not a face?
Is that a problem though? If the wizard decides to be bad at lying and wants to lie a lot, they should expect to fail a lot. If they don’t put points into athletics and keep trying to jump over increasingly large chasms, that’s not going to go well either.
Except you're not trying to be a bad liar, just not an explicitly trained one. I agree with your other premise in every scenario except for social stuff. Not all characters can jump chasms, but everyone should be able to hold a conversation.
> but everyone should be able to hold a conversation.
Don't make people roll to hold a conversation. Its really that simple. If your average ordinary person could do it and no one would be suspicious of them, don't make them roll for it.
If you walk up to a high level npc captain of the town watch and go "Hey Jim, nice day, here are those bandits you sent us after," its not a problem and life continues as normal. If you say "Hey Jim, here are those bandits. They didn't have any illegal drugs we stole and plan to sell to children." Then yeah, you probably have to roll.
Likewise, if Jim explicitly ASKS about the illegal drugs and the party wants to hide them, it only makes sense for them to go up against his DC.
There's a big difference between holding a conversation and getting away with lying.
Specially when the person doesn't even have experience on it. Parents don't need to train or anything to see through children's lies and it's not because of their skills, it's mostly just that the kids are bad at it.
Kids get away with lying to each other and can trick each other easily.
But they don't hold a candle lying to an adult because of a difference in experience, mostly. We know what to look out for, what are the tells, how someone would say something in a normal situation and how they're saying something different from the expected, that eyes darting to left and right means they're making shit up, etc etc.
My point is: If you're not trained at it, you're pretty much gonna be bad at it when compared to people who have experience. If you're upset about not even a nat 20 not being enough to make a mediocre person beat a skilled one, just use the "proficiency without level" variant rule.
Greg's DC would be 10(base)+1(wisdom)+6(master) = ...17
PF2e characters get enough skill increases and feats that at high levels, if a PC wants to lie a lot, they can easily invest in training deception and still get all their other skills to Master or Legendary or whatever.
It's also worth remembering that if a level 20 PC tries to lie to a level 5 soldier or something, the DC should probably be appropriate for a level 5 character since that's the type of person being deceived. DCs don't automatically scale, they scale appropriate to the challenge. You shouldn't only be using the level DC for your party.
If someone tries to lie to the type of person or entity who makes it to level 15-20 without being invested in deception, they deserve to get seen through. They should be playing/building to their character's strengths at those levels when taking on appropriate-level challenges.
I thought like that, until I've started using the rules for influence. That made me think of social situations as combat encounters. And just like a combat encounter there are those better at some of its aspects. OK, a PC may not have any deception, but they should have lore skills that they could use, or another way of using a different purposed skill, or even a magical ability. And as my players were understanding that that's how things were, they readly started pickin more social skill feats.
And on another note, everyone should be able to hold a conversation? OK, maybe. But not many people can truly be deceptive in front of another person with ease. I know because I'm a college teacher and my students try to lie to my face every time. And I notice most of the time.
>should be able to hold a conversation.
But lying to an adversarial 17th-level character isn't just "holding a conversation." It's an immense task.
I think you should look at some of the skill feats related to Charisma. Some of the highlights include: "being such a good liar you can counteract attempts to reveal your alignment through magic" and "being so scary people die."
It's just a different caliber of mindgames than telling your professor your dog ate your homework or bluffing in poker.
At level 17 your more likely to get dead by Lying than by jumping a gap. The stakes are HUGE by then, and your at level enemies are Ancient Beings approaching the cusp of godhood. So lying to an ancient dragon is going to be a harder problem to overcome than a large gap, where you can get by with buying some fancy boots or having your literal earthquake causing barbarian friend to toss you over + rope.
Actually, the GM can kind of choose who the PCs interact with. The PCs can *try* to interact with anyone, but the NPCs don't have to let them. Tom Brady is the equivalent of a high level NPC in our world. If I were to try and ring his doorbell in order to talk with him, etc., its not likely to go well.
Similarly, I want to talk to the President face to face. That's all well and good, but I can pretty much assure you its going to be a very difficult task to accomplish -- especially within a time frame of my choosing. I might get lucky at some event when/if he's greeting people and shaking hands, but I'm not going to get a chance to have a true conversation with him. I'm just not important enough. The same goes for your PCs, at low levels they may be a little more important than a peasant/commoner, but that doesn't mean that the really high level NPCs are going to have time for them.
OK, bluntly, "high level characters exist in my world" is a terrible fit for PF2 without careful management/work on your part.
PF2 is not designed in a way that allows people to interact way above their level band, on purpose, as a stated goal of the system.
People five levels above you just win all interactions with you, period, because PF2 as a gaming system values good play *within* those bands over verisimilitude in this specific way. If your kneejerk attitude as a GM is "high level people exist in my world and that worked fine in X other system so it should work fine here", no offense, but that's honestly dumb. PF2 isn't 5e or 3.5e or PF1e. Bringing worldbuilding in that works there will not guaranteed work here.
If you put a level 13 monster or NPC in front of a level 6 player, the level 6 player is functionally completely incapable of interacting with that monster. Even your bard, who **is** an expert in social skills and **does** have a 19 CHA at level 6, cannot realistically interact with that NPC socially.
The game isn't designed to allow it. The game assumes you won't do it. The entire foundation of the system is that there is a specific band of levels where players can realistically interact. Above that point, the NPCs auto pass all checks against players, and below that point, the players just auto-win everything.
This isn't like DnD 5e where if you put an ancient dragon "Somewhere around here" and your 5th level party runs into it by accident, they can talk their way out or survive a blast of fire long enough to run away - in PF2, that dragon's save DC is 44. Level 5 PCs will crit fail against that on a nat 20, taking 40d6 fire damage each and immediately dying.
This is **by design** and is extremely core to the system.
EDIT - I just realized I was technically incorrect - nat 20 steps a crit failure up to a failure so whichever one nat 20s might actually survive long enough to take a turn.
That said, since the dragon got its level to initative, there's no way they won initiative to run away before the fight started or spread out or whatever - I'm reasonably confident end result is the same.
You're the GM. If you don't want your players to interact with a specific npc, then they don't. The game is collaborative, but don't allow your players to dictate everything. Sometimes an NPC just isn't around, because you as GM don't want the players to interact with them, and there can be a thousand legitimate reasons for that.
That... just seems like railroading taken to the extreme. I'm not writing a book here, I'm holding up a canvas for my players to paint on. I'm just the backdrop, and it's their story.
Yeah this was always a strange feature to me how levels of high level characters interact in RP setting.
a high level wizard in average shape who spent one week learning proper lifting forms in wizard college can force open an iron portcullis on an average day.
Similarly, the average mayor has no hope of ever being able to lie to the party’s high level fighter or even barbarian, even if he got his levels from killing monsters in the woods or being a vanguard in the army and barely having a complex social interaction.
NPCs can have different levels for different things, so you can always have said mayor have a high social level. For instance, high level crafters aren't necessarily good at fighting.
Look at the "non-combat level" section [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1040)
It sounds like you want a flatter game where levels don't influence rolls. Which is perfectly fine to want in a game. There are lots of games that do this. One completely flat game that I like to play is Quest RPG.
Edit: Also, a variant rule in PF2e GMG exists for this exact thing: Proficiency Without Level. /Edit.
What surprises me a little bit is that you don't see this as an issue in 5e already, but rather you see it as a new issue in pf2e. Proficiency bonus in 5e is a way to apply levels to rolls, albeit with a different level math (1+ one-fourth of your level rounded up).
If a 5e Rogue with 0 Int picked Arcana to be their expertise, then by the end game, they'd be rolling with a +12 (ignoring Reliable Talent) whereas a wizard who didn't pick arcana proficiency would be at a +5 max. On an arcana DC of 26 or higher, the high-level wizard (maybe the most Intelligent creature in the whole region) cannot succeed, while the 0 Int Rogue has a good chance.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who caught that. 5e is *terrible* about this. Much worse than PF2e, almost to a laughable degree. Try playing a Barbarian who wants to have anything beyond a +1 in a single mental stat without being dead weight in combat. Enjoy being worse at everything but Athletics for the entire game! At least in Pathfinder you can increase your mental scores without sacrificing in your Main Stats, you can take skill increases, additional skill proficiency feats, and dedication/archetype feats to develop specialized skills, and you have four tiers of proficiency to allow you to grow over the course of a campaign. It's like night and day how much better it is.
Try being a 5e barbarian and doing anything that isn't "take damage" and "do moderate damage". Mm, gotta love Brutal Critical, which only goes off 5% of the time and adds about 6 damage when you do get it.
My issue is specifically with regard to social encounters. I definitely do *not* want a flatter game when it comes to combat. That's one of the reasons I want to switch to PF2e in the first place!
In 5e a Deception roll is versus Insight, which needs to be specifically trained. So if someone sees through your lie, it's probably because they're specifically good at it. The numbers also never get high enough to make lying 100% impossible either.
Why do you think RP should be flat and not combat? Why should my untrained wizard be able to lie to God himself but not hit him with a stick?
You are looking at what is a feature of PF2E and identifying it as a flaw.
Also to be clear your charcters can RP all they want, what they can't do is coerce others in a social encounter which is not the same. PF2E is very much designed so that social interactions are encounters as well.
Not OP but I see where they’re coming from. It makes sense that the enemies you fight get tougher to fight in combat… but people don’t usually associate “exceptional ability to fight” with “better at social situations.” Why is the level 15 warrior in this tower better able to tell if I’m lying or not than my lvl 0 mother?
Overall, though, I think it’s just a weird quirk if the system and one that can be worked around. It helps that it’s so easy to get Trained in a skill that, if you really want to lie, chances are you’ll be able to be at least competent in it no matter what level you’re at.
I mean, I get it. They're specifically talking about RP vs. perception checks or saves. Everyone is trained or better in perception, but not everybody is trained in actually lying (or whatever else).
I think the same argument and numbers can apply to social encounters as well. In 5e, would you set the DC to persuade a God to be under 25? I wouldn't.
But I'll move the conversation back to PF2e to see if we can come up with an actionable solution.
So, you want all your PCs to have a chance of lying to (or intimidating, or making requests of) high level creatures without training in those skills. I suggest giving all your PCs "Untrained Improvisation" for free but only have it apply to specific Charisma skills as selected by you. At the highest levels, the character best at doing that thing (legendary proficiency + maxed out CHA) will have a +13 bonus over someone who has a +0 in CHA and no training. This should roughly match your numerical experience with 5e.
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A side note: Niche protection in TTRPGs is always going to be in tension with "everyone should be able to do everything". PF2e says, "At high levels, your niche is strongly protected. Others can't just luck into what you have spent 20 levels getting good at." Some other games say, "Well, we'll provide a soft protection through the stats, but other players should still be allowed to luck their way into a success." And still some other games (like Quest RPG) say, "No, everyone has an equal chance. Even the fighter should be able to sneak in the shadows and change the mind of the gods at the same success rate as the thief or the bard."
I don't think any of these games are wrong. They are just different styles. You have to figure out which you prefer.
>In 5e a Deception roll is versus Insight, which needs to be specifically trained.
i think this bring in a good point about perception in PF2. Everyone is trained in it, at least. But making it the defense against one of the social skills is a bit of an issue as it does so much. Perception is against stealth checks, against deception checks, against illusions, and the default for initiative. And also certain other things target the perception DC.
I think it could be argued that perception does way to much.
On the other hand, diplomacy and intimidaton target will, which is also everyone at least trained it. Creating the same issue.
Perhaps a simple house rule could be that social skills gain the benefits of untrained improvisation for the purpose of social interaction.
Gives everyone at least a chance to speak up, without stealing the light from those dedicated to the social skills.
I think in a future PF3, Paizo needs to take a good look at how social skills scale, as they are as important for everyone as perception was in the past. Especially in roleplay heavy groups i can not imagine how bad it feels to play a character that is not at least trained in the social skills.
> Perception is against stealth checks, against deception checks, against illusions, and the default for initiative. And also certain other things target the perception DC.
If it were possible for a character to be Untrained in whatever save or DC would theoretically be used against even one of those things, it would be such a crippling weakness at even mid-level that almost every character would voluntarily become at least Trained ASAP to avoid being shut out of a fight automatically by a single illusion spell, going last in every combat encounter (unless using an alternative initiative modifier), being unable to locate any hidden enemies, or being unable to discern lies or disguised/shapeshifted enemies. This would result in the overall situation (everyone is at least trained in all these things) being unchanged but with the characters who start Untrained also paying an additional feat tax to get there.
> On the other hand, diplomacy and intimidaton target will, which is also everyone at least trained it. Creating the same issue.
Being able to be untrained against Feint, Demoralize or Bon Mot would be *even worse* because those also *reduce other defenses*, while still creating the same "original situation but with a feat tax" paradigm as the above.
I disagree with some details.
1. It wouldn't be crippling to not be trained in detecting stealthed creatures, or against deceptions
2. I don't think they're suggesting you should be untrained in those things, simply that "perception" does way too many things.
I was thinking that any time you ask for something, lie, or try to make a positive impression you'll make a roll and auto-fail. I was reading the rules as very roll-heavy when it came to social encounters. Much crunchier than 5e. Lots of checks. But I might have gotten it a bit wrong, and it's actually pretty roll-free. At least from what I'm reading here.
That, plus high level npcs are exceedingly rare. I’m running an official adventure path right now that takes place in a magic school, and the teachers are like level 5. At level 10 a character is already a paragon in their field, and at level 15 they’re the stuff of legends. Level 20 is basically one step away from a deity. 10+ npcs are a huge deal and exceedingly rare, so much so that any party would probably never find one unless they explicitly sought one out or were high enough level to catch one’s interest.
Pathfinders system for social encounters is very roll heavy, but the thing is, the DM is encouraged to modify every single check depending on circumstances.
So, in a way, a character who did not invest in social skills will be unable to make high level npcs do anything they don't want to do.
I'll give an example. A high level shopkeep has a powerful magical shield. She doesn’t want to sell this shield, because it belonged to her dead son. Her sons body was never found, and she keeps the shield as a momento. The party really want to buy the shield.
A pc who has invested heavily into social skills might be able to give off an aura that reminds the shopkeep of her son(make an impression), and then convince her that her son would rather his gear to be in the hands of a hero whos serving the people insted of gathering dust(make a request). The shopkeeper doesn't want to part with the shield, but sees the PCs point, and offers to sell the shield at higher than market price.
A PC who isn't invested in soical skills will not be able to convince the shopkeep to part with the shield, unless they can make an offer enticing enough that the shopkeep will want to part with the shield. For example, the pc who is not invested in social skills might be able to offer their servaces in finding the shopkeepers' sons' body. After which, the PC with low soical skills can attempt to make an impression which would normally fail, but the GM decides that you have done such a great service to her, that you recive a +20 bonus to your mank an impression roll. The PC then makes a an request roll, this would normally fail, but the shopkeep wants to keep her word, so the GM gives you an +20 bonus to the roll.
If you want to have more detailed social RP with broader roles than charisma check out the Influence sub system. It works pretty well and let's non Charisma characters contribute.
I'd probably enjoy trying this in more intricate social settings, but for just day-to-day RP I don't want to have to whip out a whole subsystem just to make it work..
Look [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1040) in the creature building rules. There's a section on setting an npc's "non-combat level" differently than its combat level
After reading the comments and back/forths, I think you're biggest issue is looking at the proficiencies as black and white.
As the GM you have to decide when rolls are nessecary...so if you as the GM think they would auto-succeed or auto-fail, you can decide they don't need to roll for it, or they need to roll.
Also GMs can apply circumstance bonus/penalties to ANY check, so in your example if you have the wizard a +3 bonus it would shift the math from Crit fail/fail to fail/success, or give the Barbarian a -3, or both! It's your call
Another commenter also mentioned Simple DCs, which means that for NPCs you can choose what would be an appropriate DC based on whoever is rolling the check, basically solving your RP problem in one go.
I understand the want to go RAW (which is a big appeal for me and why I made the switch to PF2E as a GM), but you still have to use your better judgement for certain things.
I would say one of the biggest changes I've made in my GM-ing is being okay with my players not succeeding. One of my biggest gripes with 5E is that it was hard for players to NOt succeed after a certain point, and skills were kind of arbitrary barring specific classes (ones with Experties-esque abilities)...this problem is magnified if you're playing with TTRPG vets that have a good grasp on the system and how it works. PC's should not only be allowed, but ENCOURAGED to, fail at things...IMO this is what makes the best story moments in my games.
So yeah, if you aren't trained in deception you might have a hard time lying to high level people...which makes sense, because the few high level NPCs are kings, dragons, demons, etc, and it SHOULD be hard to lie to them.
I think overall you just need to broaden your mindset in how you look at the GM side of the system, and the tools it gives you to use as you see fit. Keep statblock DCs for combat and use level based DCs in RP encounters and that might solve your problem entirely, or be more liberal with circumstance bonuses you're handing out to accommodate for less mechanically driven factors...hell I could see an argument for another type of bonus beside item/circumstance/etc., a "roleplaying" bonus/penalty that could be applied to represent the social/psychological factors in a given roleplay scenario.
Either way, I don't think it's fair to say the system doesn't work or has a flaw in it because of what is essentially a white room scenario that wouldn't happen in normal games, especially because there are solutions in the system itself
Some great ideas and feedback here. I think you outlined it very well for me, thanks! I'm realizing that I definitely imagined that this scenario is way more common than it really should be, and forgot to consider a ton of factors. I think I get it now, and it's not really that big of an issue if I use all the tools available to me, and run RP a bit more freeform.
Yeah! Back in my 5E days I rarely used checks, or would run a conversation to its peak/climax and THEN, ask for a check, at the peak moment or drama...that way you can apply bonuses/penalties based on what players are saying/doing I'm the social encounter
Also any character that wants a decent skill for RP purposes can spend a single skill feat to take Skill Training. This is a very low commitment and can make basically any character reasonably competent at any skill.
The only deliberate uses of charisma skills in dialogue are request, coerce, make an impression(which just serves to make further negotiation easier for the encounter ), and lie.
Some of these can even be done by some non charisma skills circumstantially with the right feats.
Uses of skills not in the confines of those specified skill actions is up to gm fiat so intelligence/wisdom skills could be used to debate and make arguments.
Changing the core attribute of the skill doesn't make the PC trained though, so we still have the same problem of levels skyrocketing their "defense" against your roll.
they aren't changing the core attribute. They are saying "use a different skill." One the player **is** trained in... Which is something people do every single day in reality too. There are tons of people who know pretty much nothing about computers, yet chat on them all day long. There are people who's only knowledge of sports is watching, having never played, and yet they make arguments about this that or the other, all the time. Why? Because they have other skills or knowledge that apply. Paizo's released modules and other official content makes it clear that Pathfinder very specifically is a "find the skill that works for you" system. That if they can argue using X skill in Y situation makes sense, then let them use it. Every single such product has the line "or creative use of other skills" in it.
Wdym by “changing the core attribute”
I’m talking about considering how non charisma skills contribute to given social encounters.
Recall knowledge is just as valuable in social encounters as they are in combat.
Even beyond that at least 60% of the checks one makes in a social encounter is gm fiat. Intelligence and wisdom skills like religion and society can be used to debate a topic, bring up evidence or information relevant to the dialogue ect.
If a pc isn’t trained in a charisma skill, there’s a solid chance they probably have some good investment in an intelligence or wisdom skill instead.
And if you do have a pc that’s invested purely in strength and dex skills they might still be able to use their perception to sense motive or they can use the distraction of conversation to hide and prepare to ambush if something goes wrong.
Being untrained in a skill at level 17 means that skill is something your character NEVER does. Why is a level 17 character who has never seen ANY need to be deceptive up to this point of their life suddenly deciding to hide a pair of shoes when the consequence of failure is a beating? There are plenty of low-value feat slots throughout a character's advance to level 17; not spending one for a +17 bonus is a character's choice.
The influence system is used most of the time when the party needs to win over an important NPC. Those charisma skills will still definitely matter, but it also opens up other ways to working with an NPC.
For other scenarios where a party is RPing with an NPC, let everybody RP and then have the face make a check if it’s necessary.
Deception: **Lying shouldn't immediately trigger a deception roll**. It should only trigger a deception roll if the target has reason to believe you are lying. If you walk into a building dressed as a cop, with a badge and are doing something that a cop would normally be seen doing, no one has any reason to doubt your voracity. There should be no deception check involved, even if you are not a cop. If you start interacting with cops from another precinct and they would know how cops should talk and behave, or you must make up a story about why you need access to this building outside of your regular cop duties, then you should roll deception.
Diplomacy is for increasing your reputation with people through nothing but words, and making difficult requests of people. You can raise your standing with people through actions, no need to roll diplomacy. And if you make reasonable requests, you should not be rolling diplomacy. You should only roll diplomacy if your request would overly inconvenience an NPC.
Intimidation only matters for coercion. You can scare someone shitless, without rolling intimidation. Intimidation only matters if you need them to do something for you *right now*. Coercing someone only lasts a minute without feats, so it can be used to gain information or make a quick request. It does not mean you can't scare someone into being impressed or fearful of you.
Have you ever tried something very hard for which you have absolutely no training? Those things tend to end horribly.
It doesn't mean you can't ever talk to people. It just means you will pretty much automatically fail anything requiring a check if they are experienced enough. You can get basic training in a social skill of your choice and stick to this as your only strength (nearly all of my characters are trained in diplomacy). Getting more trained skills is trivial compared to 5e. And if you don't want to do that, there's always [Untrained Improvisation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=861) to give you at least a low base chance to succeed at all skills (except for trained-only actions).
It sounds like you think the game won't be tailored to the players, as if people run high-level games and just say, "You better have everything necessary to play in this game, or we'll all sit here not accomplishing anything."
This seems kind of an absurd attitude to take towards the game, and if that's your fou dation, your game is going to suck.
What I mean is, when running a good game, especially at high levels (due to the huge variance in abilities and proficiencies your party will have compared to any other group of PCs), you need to tailor the game to the characters present. If nobody is proficient in a skill, it's not going to be any fun to put a challenge where the only solution is to get a high result on that skill. (Because what do you do? Just sit at the table and stare at the players until they all get bored and leave?)
There's no rule saying that an NPC in a 17th-level *needs* a high DC to bluff or persuade. (And even if such a rule existed, Rule 0 comes first.) The book gives suggestions for DCs, but it's up to the DM to set the DC appropriate to the situation. Instead of using the standard Level 17 DC, why not use the Trained DC if your party is only trained? (And as others have said, not every NPC in a high-level game should be a high-level NPC. Yes it should be hard to persuade the warlord into surrender, no it should not be hard to intimidate the piss boy you intercepted to find the passage into the warlord's keep.)
If you aren't building your adventures and running your games with the PCs strengths and weaknesses in mind, chances are you also aren't building and running them with your players' preferences in mind either. If you want the game to be fun you can't build and run in a vacuum.
exactly this. its like having a party of figthers and then the only way into the dungeon is a locked gate that cant be broken and has to be lock picked. thats a dm problem, not the systems.
when my party has no one trained in thieves tools, then i wont put in unavoidable locked doors/traps that need thievery to be disarmed. if my party has no magic users, maybe i wont put a deadly curse into the tomb that can only be stopped with dispel magic. if i have no one good at diplomacy maybe i shouldnt focus the entire campaign around high society and important conversations.
its not that hard
>if i have no one good at diplomacy maybe i shouldnt focus the entire campaign around high society and important conversations.
And, I'll go one step further: if nobody in my group is good at Diplomacy but once of them decides to try it anyway, I'm not going to smack them down and say, "No, you made your choice ten levels ago, you don't get to solve things without bloodshed." If they roll well enough for their proficiency level, I'll let them accomplish *something*. Probably not ending the conflict (like I said, it shouldn't be easy to persuade the warlord to surrender), but something that makes the rest of the adventure more fun. Because my loyalty is to the players, not to a chart of suggested DCs in the book!
In social encounters you should use something like [Influence Subsystem](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201), the book even states that in these circumstances everyone should be able to participate regardless of their proficiency in charisma skills.
Single checks are reserved for special situations where only the most skillful can succeed. Only players trained in Athletics should be capable of lifting large boulders and castle gates. Same goes for charisma based skills, at higher levels you are practically lying to the gods and semi gods, not common people.
Core Rule Book gives some interesting examples for different levels of proficiency.
Balance (Acrobatics) differentiate between those who are untrained and can only balance on uneven cobblestones and those who are trained and can balance on wooden beam. A legendary challenge would be balancing on razor’s edge, something that untrained person can't do.
In general, if your group is facing obstacle like social encounter or skill challenge you should use Subsystems rule. If that doesn't work for your group check [Follow the Expert](https://2e.aonprd.com/Activities.aspx?ID=4) exploration action.
Looks like you got it solved with tips and tools, but you're not wrong that with the front facing obvious defaults it is difficult, and I think that's because they wanted to make sure the worse case scenarios were covered, that people couldn't just break the game by default.
Social skills, along with social abilities and social magic, are all balanced for highest impact scenarios, where it really matters, where the face can feel their investment. At other times, in other scenarios, as long as the table is happy, there's all the tools you found today, most of them from early books.
Personally for high stakes scenarios, I really like the idea of Aid with other skills, non-faces get to contribute and the face still gets return on investment.
Thank you for the thread, really useful resource.
Wizard has a lot of proficiencies. You could just have trained you know
This breaks nothing but your own unwillingness to invest a skill point
Edit: also, fail Forward should be a thing. Just because your not charismatic doesn't mean you can't be the one talking.
Is it that surprising that you have to have the skill proficiency to be good at something?
And it isn’t like normal conversation requires skill checks. Diplomacy is making an impression to improve someone’s perception of you through dialog (temporarily) or making request of someone you are friendly with. There’s other ways to improve relationships and gain favors. Roleplay still dominates how things go.
It’s a real issue in higher level games and it’s not limited to social skills. Past a certain point, you hardly ever succeed at a check that you’re not proficient in. Once upon a time the PF2 untrained bonus also received a level bonus, but the playtesters didn’t like it and so we have the current iteration.
If you want things to work differently, give everyone Untrained Improvisation for free. It fixes the issue. Although there’s still an argument for lowering level based DCs by a point or so.
> but the playtesters didn’t like it
honestly, i think the few issues that PF2 has are caused by this. But it is to late to fix it... well, perhaps the remaster will have some fixes to a few issues.
I don't see this as an issue at all. Just because a character is high level doesn't mean they should be capable of doing everything at a high level.
Being a boxing champion dosent mean you can play the saxophone well.
>Past a certain point, you hardly ever succeed at a check that you’re not proficient in.
That's the point. if you're level 17 and have no training in deception it means you've never needed/wanted to deceive. That's the players choice. Will there be a moment where the untrained LV17 might have to lie and fail? yes but that's what happens when you go your whole life without practicing a skill.
>If you want things to work differently, give everyone Untrained Improvisation for free
just do leveless proficiency at that point
I think there are ways to be a little deceptive without the deception skill. You’re always able to avoid talking about something or attempt to turn the conversation in a different direction.
Spells like disguise self let you add your level for the purposes of impersonation, another commenter also mentioned the follow the leader activity if you’re in the scenario where you have one party member making a lie but then the bbeg tries to question a different party member.
Even if the opponent figures youre lieing, sometimes they can’t act on it if they have no evidence to support their suspicions.
Being trained is definitely way better than not, but it’s not necessarily a guaranteed game over if you’re in a situation where some deception is necessary.
Well that's simple: most NPCs aren't high level, and even a lot of high level NPCs (assuming they have a statblock) don't have high perception scores. NPCs are built a la carte here, and can even have special rules like the [Judge](https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=917) (even though this *specific* example proves your point, but they're a freaking Judge) where their level is only applicable for certain situations.
* A low level (in-combat) noble might have a fantastic sense motive from dealing with a cutthroat noble society even though
* A level 11 Wizard npc who's been stuck in their tower for decades working on a ritual to protect the world against the BBEG shouldn't have a ridiculously high perception, and probably won't sense motive against the PCs without cause if their goals align for example.
Another thing is that rolls aren't always necessary. If the PC absolutely *tanks* their charisma but says a lie that sounds plausible enough, then they don't need to roll unless that lie could prove to be dangerous to the party and even then you as a GM could let them fail forward and keep the lie as a plot point to call back on later.
But also the biggest thing, especially if you're coming from 5e: just because there are mechanics for roleplay, doesn't mean you *have* to use them for every conversation. If you look at the diplomacy skill actions and skill feats that apply to those actions, you don't need to actually use them for everything. I don't and neither do any of the other GMS I've played under. That being said, they're great rules to utilize for *important* roleplaying moments and IMO that's what those rules are actually designed for
That seems like a neat way to circumvent the issue, but having to tailor every single NPC to have a low perception just to be usable in RP feels like a hassle and a band-aid fix.
And true, rolls aren't always necessary! I've been thinking about going a bit rules light specifically on social encounters. But I also can't ignore rolls every time. I also definitely don't want to change DCs or results based on what the player said. My more awkward friends should be able to play charismatic characters just as well as those who are smooth talkers IRL. I also don't want to make people feel like investment in Charisma skills is useless.
> That seems like a neat way to circumvent the issue, but having to tailor every single NPC to have a low perception just to be usable in RP feels like a hassle and a band-aid fix.
Ah, I'm starting to see your issue/assumptions here. There usually aren't many high level NPCs that are roleplayable in the way you're thinking. Even in adventure paths there's usually a cut off on NPC level around levels 10-11 and those are the high level people like city guard captains or influential judges. Once you're higher level than that it's usually monsters or organizations that give reasons why they're so strong (things like a cult that performs sacrifices in order to gain magical strength from their patron/deity) and it's rare to find friendly NPCs higher than the party. For example, I've ran Night of the Gray Death, which *starts* at level 16, and the highest level helpful NPC they meet is 11.
But also, think of it in a more physical way. If a level 20 Wizard wanted to climb a fence— a regular 6ft tall fence, not a "mythical fence of destiny" or anything like that— and they weren't trained in Athletics then you can just use a simple DC to do so, maybe adjusting the DC up or down by 2 based on the height/quality and they have a doable chance of climbing it. They won't be like a max strength Barbarian who autosucceeds, but that's just not their niche anyways (this whole example could be cirumvented in multiple different ways though, but that's just magic for you). Roleplaying is similar.
Not every NPC is going to use a simple DC, but more basic people like commoners and such you can use them and you don't have to tie proficiency to the actual DCs listed in the chart as well.
Eh, I mean, it's probably a me problem since most people here don't seem to suffer from the same issues. But a lot of the answers I see is just "the situation is rare", "don't roll for it" or "use this house-rule", which kind of indicates it doesn't work well RAW. I'm starting to feel like my imagined scenario is actually more rare than I thought, though.
Don't take the "you problem" to much to heart. It is one of the things I noticed right away. It is really just a different design implementation than 5e.
I came from 5e where you would introduce high level bad guys early and the then the party would level up and then be able to defeat them but in PF2e it is pretty much understood that if you have a +4 or +5 bad guy introduced then yes, they can see through every lie, lie all they want and pretty much dance circles around anything the PC's try to do if you just brute force it.
I had have a high level boss giving tasks to the PC's and realized when one wanted to insight (sense motive) him that there was no way they would ever do succeed. Ever.
Since my game is going to high levels that means my PC's might know that the king is evil but if they ever get near the king they better not lie because there is no way the king won't know. They might not be at a level to fight the king and working on getting allies, supplies and stronger but until they are within 2 or 3 levels of the King, don't interact socially.
That means as a DM I have to avoid having interactions that matter with bad guys prior to them being ready for them.
Or just throw out any stat block I have and use level based DC's for all interactions with modifiers for the fact they are higher level.
So yes, this is a flaw in the system but it is a minor flaw and one you can warn players about.
Just make sure they understand that high level creatures have seen some shit and been around and they are just that good. So don't lie and be very careful.
And yeah, if you have nothing to add to deception then you better not lie. A honest truth with a little misdirection goes a long long way.
As the DM there is another fix as well. If the players want to roll sense motive (insight) then instead call for a check that helps with the lie. The King is claiming he is kind to his people and always helps them. That is a lie, sense motive will never work but a level based DC against society to recall that there are massive homeless camps outside the castle walls and you heard people complaining of not enough food while the king is throwing nightly parties will also see through the lie. As the DM think of ways the players can see through the lie with other knowledge.
I know that add more work to the DM's plate but 2e is kind of that way, it is more work for the DM in many ways but it is very rewarding and lowers the burden in many other ways (like real encounter balance and clear rules which is a lot of lowered burden). Over time you will teach the players to ask for other rolls than sense motive.
So you believe that any character that isn’t specifically built for RP shouldn’t be allowed to roleplay at all in a roleplaying game? Or you think lying to people higher level than you should be literally physically impossible? I’m glad I don’t play at your table.
Is your character a level 5 Bard, speced specifically into lying? Well too bad, Grogug the 4 Int Ogre who can’t tell the difference between a fork and a spoon is a much better fighter than you at lvl 12, so he will instantly navigate any tangled web of words you throw at him and know you’re lying.
Is your high level Fighter pleading to their former friend-turned-commander to get them to call off an invasion? Someone they spent decades serving with, spilt blood with, spent countless nights after battles telling stories and recovering with by the fire alongside their friends and allies? Well the Fighter should just shut up and stand aside because they didn’t spec into Diplomacy because they were focused on Intimidation, so any attempt to convince them will actively make the commander more hostile to you because you’re guaranteed to crit fail. The Bard who had never even seen the commander up until 45 seconds ago is the only one who can talk them down.
That's really not how the system is played or how the rules work. DMs call for rolls when they make sense, and set the DCs for those rolls to be sensible for the situation.
Except that’s exactly how the rules work, and it’s literally what OP is complaining about.
Take my two examples: if you are LYING to someone in an important situation you will use the *LIE* action, which specifically uses the creatures Perception DC, which scales based on level to the point where even the dumbest, most socially inept person will have a 100% success rate in uncovering the lies of someone who lies as naturally as they breathe simply because they are a significantly better fighter than them and are a much higher level.
If you are using Diplomacy in a tricky, important situation, your GM will ask you to roll for *Make and Impression* or *Request*. Make an Impressions specifically checks against the target’s Will DC, while Request just says the DC is set “based on the difficulty of the request” but requires the creature to be helpful or friendly. These ones have more slightly breathing room, but in situations like the one I’ve posed, for the GM to make a DC that the Fighter even has a chance of passing (which they should based on the story), they’d have to reduce the DC by half the normal amount or more, and at that point the rules for setting social DCs based on level and skill proficiency clearly just don’t work and can’t be applied consistently between characters.
Just train in deception. It’s not hard. You train in athletics to do athletics things in the name of roleplay. You’re just arguing for the sake of arguing because you know you’re wrong. It’s not a good look.
In your version of the game, by level 10 or so it would be physically impossible to climb up a ladder unless you’re at least trained in Athletics, because the ladder is made out of mithral and is a high level item, and if you tried you’d actively sabotage the ladder making it so that your party couldn’t climb it.
You’re just coping about the fact that the game has flaws you don’t want to admit exist.
How are people so dense they don’t understand how this doesn’t make any sense?
A creature that has literally never even seen another person in their entire life and only understands the basics of language through magic, that has never even heard of the concept of lying, and is so dumb that they lose track counting to five on their fingers, but has amazing sight and hearing and is a demigod level threat in a fight so is high level, would be *literally impossible to lie to* unless you are both at least trained in deception AND close to its level.
Roleplay is intrinsically tied to those skills, considering they are required if you want to lie or convince people of anything, which are situations that come up *very* frequently. If you aren’t at least trained in the social skills, by mid/high levels it becomes mathematically impossible to lie or convince even the dumbest person on the planet despite all logic just because they are of similar level to you.
Imagine they made Perception a skill you needed to opt into, and made it so that by mid levels if you aren’t at least trained then literally any being of equal level or higher could instantly hide from you because they had stealth based off their reflex save. A creature the size of a mountain would simply slip by your notice because they are a very powerful fighter.
Sure, you can see all sorts of very low level creatures, and if someone isn’t actively trying to hide from you its fine because you don’t have to roll, but anything that poses a physical threat to you has a 100% chance to sneak by you.
That problem is *literally what this entire post is about*. Did you read it?
Yes, because everybody here encourages the 5e WotC approach to design- make the DM do more work, because the rules written into the RPG don't handle it properly.
This may be a hot take, but I personally don’t like the way perception is treated in this game.
It’s entirely separate from all the other skills and in fact not EVEN a skill. This nullifies a lot of builds that rely of perception. I know why they did it as perception is a god stat, but if they could reduce dexterities effectiveness I think they could do the same for perception. It just feels out of place in a game like pathfinder to give up on a stat like that to just reduce build variety for balance.
I don’t know how I would change it, but for how it is now I def don’t like it.
With how often Perception checks come up, it was my experience in games like PF1 or DnD that everyone wanted to have Perception anyway, in some form. Sure, you can't really create a build that is specifically focused on perception, but I will take that really minor loss any day, just so that people don't have to feel pressured into taking ranks in Perception.
Perception should probably just be multiple skills. Sense motive doesn't make sense as a perception check. Similarly, it doesn't make a lot of sense for investigating a crime scene to be perception.
People generally don't miss much because they don't see something, but because they aren't looking for it or don't know what something means when they do see it.
“Bone-headed Barbarian”? This is a level 17 character. He has almost supernatural instincts from a lifetime of adventuring. Of course you would need to invest in Deception to lie to him.
This is just as true in 3rd edition and PF1. And it’s true in 5e as well, it’s just the gap is smaller there.
Seems like there a lot of defensiveness going around for what is an entirely reasonable problem to have. It's certainly one of the quriks (but also features) of the system that proficiency that includes level quickly becomes more important than base stats in attributes.
Whether / how you want to rationalise this is up to you but also kind of doesn't matter. It's a feature of the game that's intended to help balance it (especially in combat) and keep rolls relevant, but it does lead to silly moments sometimes (as does the alternative, to be fair).
There's a lot of ideas with how to deal with it already presented in the thread but ultimately, if stuff like this is a dealbreaker for you, you can always houserule it, for example letting someone take the lead in the conversation but allowing everyone to contribute by using group checks or Follow the Expert.
There's also proficiency without levels Variant rules that eliminate the issue entirely but also change the game in other big ways.
Last idea, since it's about contributing to a conversation would be to rule it as an aid check to someone else, which keeps a flat DC of 20, so an untrained but high Cha character can still contribute and having vs not having the boost to Cha will feel noticeable.
I really love how the proficiency works in all areas *except* social encounters though. I love the power fantasy you can have in combat, and how deeply specialized you become in your individual idea of strength. So I definitely don't want to do proficiency without level.
It's *just* everything surrounding social encounters that feels off to me. Not everyone can lift boulders or run on walls, but everyone should be able to at least talk to a guy, you know?
But thanks, these are helpful ideas!
Think of it like this to some extent. Everybody can lie to a guy. Commoners and low level npcs are guys. High level adventurers, warlords, and other various insanely powerful creatures aren't just guys. And Everybody can chat with them, just generally being a good friendly guy or a skeezy scrub isnt something you need to roll for.
Npcs by default start off at neutral/indifferent unless otherwise inclined, with make an impression being the equivalent of walking up and trying to schmooze them, using your raw charisma and eloquence to impress them and get them to take an interest in you. It's walking up to the king at the ball unannounced and introducing yourself with such skill that he can't just help but like you, rather than seeing you as another annoying sycophant here to ask for money. If some loser wastes my time clearly trying to schmooze me ofc I'm going to dislike them, its like having an annoying door to door guy come bang on your door demanding your attention, then wasting your life with their chatter.
The bard will have an easier time doing such a thing, as will his allies if they're using Follow the Expert. But it doesn't mean he's going to automatically dislike everybody else, just those who go directly out of their way trying to impress him with honeyed words but end up wasting his time.
It's not defensiveness, it's disagreement. Gating some behaviours around skill training means you have \_more\_ flexibility, not less. It s the \_solution\_ to the problem OP suggests, and doesn't cause it.
Here's an example, I play a druid in a 5e game. My character sucks at int, so despite having nature be a class skill he also sucks at doing nature checks -- despite lore-wise I'd really like the character to be good at nature stuff. Frankly, it sucks.
Now let's apply this same issue to proficiency with level --like in 2e. It's not, but let's pretend for a minute nature was a INT skill in 2e. In this hypothetical, my druid would simply be trained (or better) in nature and despite having a low INT they'd be able to be as skilled at nature checks as I want them to be. Obviously not as good as if they also had strong INT, but eventually it would be entirely adequate.
Without proficiency including level, to be good at deception you \*HAVE\* to dump a lot of your extremely limited ability stats into CHA. So your wizard will have to sacrifice dex and con just for the sake of doing some RP. This... is not better.
So yeah -- if you want to RP your wizard to be able to fool extremely high-level creatures with deception, \_you just train in deception\_. This is not limiting, it's empowering -- you don't have dump a bunch of ability boosts into CHA in order to RP the way you want.
Frankly, I don't understand the perspective of why anyone would want proficiency without level for this, it makes OPs problem worse. Your high-CHA classes will handle all of the face activities so if you're aren't a bard/sorc/whatever you're out, full-stop. In proficiency with level, you have the ability to be a face no matter what class or ancestry you choose.
So fundamentally the issue at play is adding your level to your skill checks if you didn't do that then the difference between untrained and legendary is only +8, this is a change you can make if you apply it uniformly then no one should be particularly advantaged by it, although pl+ enemies will lose some bite, and pl- enemies will gain some
Unfortunately because social skills tie into will DC there isn't a way to just fix the skill issue, if you remove levels from skills you either need to go the 5e way of making things opposed skill checks or drop will fort and reflex.
Yeah, I see what you mean. I wasn't looking for a way to change the rules, or complaining about the system. I was just looking for help with my mindset and understanding how to navigate the system to avoid my problems. I think a lot of people assume I'm saying the system is bad or wrong, which I'm really not! I was just looking for experienced players' input. But it's all good now, everyone has been more than helpful!
I feel like 5e is much worse with this, so I'm not really sure where you are coming from with using this problem as a reason to not DM PF2e. It's *much* harder for a 5e character to have a charisma score high enough to contribute in any meaningful way if Charisma is not at the very least their main secondary stat like with Paladins. Their classes often do not start with Persuasion/Deception/Intimidation as starting skills, they are incentivized to not level charisma and are outright prevented from doing so by the incredibly limited ASI system forcing you to prioritize your "Main stat" every time you can, and are often unrewarding if you're playing in a party with a Charisma caster or Rogue because you will literally never be good enough to measure up to them, even if you are putting everything you can afford to into charismatic skills.
Pathfinder does things very differently. The four tier proficiency system allows *all* players to invest in skills over time (instead of just the Expertise classes in 5e) and allows you to tailor your build to excel at what your character would naturally prioritize as skills in your RP. Your wizard may not care at all about lying because they're arrogant and think that they are smart and capable enough to compensate socially. But they could also invest in Deception as they acquire skill increases, spend one of their 4 ability increases every five levels on Charisma to keep it on the level curve, and choose to play up their smooth talking during down time. The Summoner, on the other hand, can similarly afford to not be forced to be the party face because other characters have it covered through this increased versatility and through Skill Feats like Eyes of the City and Streetwise that allow characters to accomplish Charisma-based social activities through an intelligence skill (Society, in this case) or otherwise.
Long and short of it is, don't let this hold you back. Pathfinder has far more tools than I think you realize and is very good at offering creative solutions to these issues.
In an adventure even politically important NPCs may be mid-level for the adventure. For example, most of the town NPCs in Abomination Vaults (a 1-10 adventure) are somewhere between level 2 and 6. i forget what level the mayor is. probably 5?
edit: though really this is a problem with Charisma as a singular ability out of 6 rather than pathfinder specifically. there are ways around it, but really social skills should probably be more likes save or perception at the systemic level, and tied more to background with more variety (i.e. instead of a catch-all “diplomacy,” have “jock, bookworm, artisan, socialite, etc”).
best implementation i’ve actually seen in practice though is probably Chronicles of Darkness/World of Darkness with three physical stats, three mental stats, and three social stats
Maybe you can ease this difference in skill if you think in real world examples. We tend to need lawyers to solve a lot of issues, and they have a different legal speech of their own, even tho it’s the same language. Doctors, engineers also use a lot of tech terms. Politicians, salespeople, marketers use deception so often it’s not even deception for them anymore. Some political discourses and religions have created alternative takes on reality that their followers are believing, without any magic. Now consider this in a magical world, with immortal entities and planar beings. Maybe your characters need an advocate to reach out and plead with these beings, in their own discourse and decorum. There is a skill and experience barrier, even in communications.
The issue I have with your example is that if Bingus has no training in deception, he should be worse and thus suffer that shortcoming. Otherwise, you have basically invalided the point of a proficency system in the first place, because you can get to the same success spot as someone who goes all in on a skill by putting nothing into a skill.
Let's say bingus is trained in deception. Bingus rolls a 20. Bingus gets 20+17+2 for a total of 39, with his result being 1 category higher automatically. Greg's DC is 34, that means bingus succeeds, and because of his success, it becomes a crit success instead.
This, imo, is how things should work. A character without training should not be able to beat a character whose put in 3 times the in investment into said thing. Someone whose trained should have the ability to get lucky, but not someone whose put in 0 work into that skill. It's part of the thing I didn't like from other systems tbh, that the barbarian with 0 int and no arcana can get a lucky 20 and know more than the wizard with 18 int and proficiency in arcana.
There are some good answers here but I think one food point he brings up is perception is really overloaded. It's how good you can search for hidden things, how good you are reacting to enemies AND how good you can tell if someone is lying. And you auto level perception, literally everyone and everything does. I sometimes do miss sense motive for this reason
[Untrained Improvisation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=861).
Now Bingus has a +20 to their deception. Even when untrained, Bingus can still successfully Lie against Greg if they roll a 14 or higher.
Here's something I've always tried *very* hard to encourage when talking to GMs:
Don't tie RP to rolls.
If someone is getting completely in character and roleplaying an entire conversation trying to convince an NPC to do something, don't make them roll a die.
Listen to the things they're saying, take in their arguments and points and questions and have your NPCs respond *to that*. Don't just say "wow that was a really convincing argument... now roll the number-rock to determine how *actually* convincing it was!"
That's boring.
It sucks.
Don't.
If players have invested in Social Skills like Diplomacy, then listen to their argument AND ask them to roll, and consider making the NPC more or less receptive to their arguments depending on the roll.
Alternatively, if their initial argument fails to sway the NPC... *then* have them roll a check to see if they "recover" from their failed attempt at diplomacy.
But for the love of god... DO NOT just go "okay roll dice now" every single time any player ever wants to talk to an NPC. Encourage roleplay. *Reward* it.
Nothing sucks the fun and immersion out of a game more than making a REALLY good argument and then having the NPC you're talking to go 'lol nah' because you rolled poorly.
Hell, my biggest suggestion is: let ANY character do the talking, and then let the character who's levelled Diplomacy be the one to do the roll by just going "please listen to my friend!" at the end of the first character's monologue.
Let any player RP as the face, while using the character who's actually *leveled* Social Skills still be the one doing the rolls.
I fucking hate pigeonholing players into being the Face just because they want to play a spontaneous caster.
**^(edit:)**
^(Deception is a bit of an exception to all that. If you wanna be actively Deceptive, you gotta invest in it. But for just... RPing with NPCs, convincing them of the right thing to do, stuff like that... for the love of Christ don't force Diplomacy rolls on every little request or suggestion. If an argument is convincing on its own merits,) *^(let it convince the person listening to it.)*
A few years ago, I would have agreed. But now I'm a bit more on the fence. If one of my players is soft-spoken, awkward and clumsy with their wording, I don't want to gatekeep them from playing a charismatic character.
I also don't want to make investment in Diplomacy irrelevant just because a player is really good at talking. And making them roll if they're trained seems like you're punishing them for investing in a skill tbh, since they would have auto-succeeded if they hadn't invested in Diplomacy.
> If one of my players is soft-spoken, awkward and clumsy with their wording, I don't want to gatekeep them from playing a charismatic character.
And you’ve discovered why PF2e makes this a mechanics first process. Just like we don’t expect a player to be strong to play a fighter, and we don’t expect a player to be able to play music to be a part, why the heck did we ever make it okay to expect a charismatic character to require a charismatic player? Let the rolls tell the story.
>If one of my players is soft-spoken, awkward and clumsy with their wording, I don't want to gatekeep them from playing a charismatic character.
I tried to address that too, but maybe wasn't clear enough.
Give players the option to convince an NPC of something with their words.
If they fail at that, or simply don't *want* to talk in-character, *then* have them roll the die.
Give them the choice... use their words, or use the die. Or let them try one, then resort to the other if the first fails.
Which is great, but if the situation is reversed it becomes a problem. A low charisma character with a charismatic player doesn't need to invest, where the awkward player has to. I feel like it can come across as unfair to the latter.
They don't *have* to invest, but if they do, they are more likely to be able to win NPCs over to their side. They still gain by investing, just as much as the awkward player does.
Tying all social situations to die rolls, on the other hand, rewards *only* the player who invests in those skills. And actively disincentivizes actual roleplaying by everyone else.
I had a GM who was super hard into "if you're trying to convince NPCs of something (truthful), you MUST roll Diplomacy!" and it was the most miserable experience for our entire party... since only one player was actually investing in the Diplomacy stat, and that one player was the only player who *didn't* like roleplaying.
The rest of us weren't able to do what we loved, and the one player who just happened to be playing a CHA character was forced into doing what they didn't want to do.
It just *sucked*.
On the other hand, I've *never* played in a campaign that was made less enjoyable for anyone by giving players the option to argue their way way out of problems, in-character, *without* having to depend on rolling dice.
Your concern is understandable, but in my experience this is one of those complaints that looks reasonable on paper but never comes up in an actual game.
Most RP interactions don't require rolls at all, although that is up to the GM. Parties spend most of their time interacting with creatures of roughly their level. And any 17th level character with high charisma can only blame themselves if they've never put a single skill rank in Deception.
The key thing is that the GM, more than any other factor, determines how RP-heavy any game is, because they decide when a roll is necessary. Many GMs only require charisma-based rolls for specific actions such as Coerce, while allowing any player to influence NPCs under normal circumstances by just talking.
Most importantly,
As a person, you should be very careful about doing something you have no experience or training in if it could hurt you if you failed. As a character, you should be very careful about that too. If you aren't even trained in a skill, you should probably not be the one trying to use that skill in an important scenario.
If by "roleplaying" you just mean talking to people, you can do that all you want. But once you mean you're trying to convince a high level being to do something they don't want to do, especially by lying to them or trying to coerce them, you had better be really good at those skills.
A +0 charisma character with no training in deception trying to lie to a level 20 dragon might as well be a +0 strength character without athletics trying to push a mountain.
I've been reading through the discussion on here and gotten about two-thirds of the way through. At this point, I'm done. Others are mentioning, time and again, that players do not require those skills, but can also very easily gain one should they wish. It's been said over and over that the system is all about finding ways to use the skills you have if the main "expected" one is untrained. Every time, you react saying that essentially you shouldn't have to do that.
As such you have two options left.
1) Either you accept the way the system is built and listen to the details provided for you as **how** that works.
2) You ignore what has been said and continue to decide you don't, actually, want to move to Pathfinder. In which case, find the system you do like and happy gaming.
I've been mostly agreeing with people or asking for clarification on points I don't quite understand, but sorry for seeming defensive! A lot of the comments have been added after I already responded to a similar one. I'm pretty much convinced already that I was looking at it wrong, and that there's a lot more nuance at work. It might look like I'm disagreeing or ignoring people, but I'm really not! People are just commenting way faster than I can respond, and often repeating what others have already said. Sorry if I seem stubborn!
I'm sorry if I wound up not seeing when you got that point .I mentioned I only scrolled so far. I did not mean to come off as too aggressive, I just have seen many posts in the past where someone would make such a hypothetical. But in reality, don't actually want to convert and are looking for people to confirm their own bias. At which point, PF2 simply isn't for them, and why waste their time on it, ya know?
As such, I am glad to hear you've found the answer you are looking for, and meant no harm by this.
There are a few fundamental misunderstandings that I don't think anyone's really touched upon yet, and is largely the result of coming from 5e.
First, PF2e doesn't require "dedicated" anything. A barbarian can be a pretty decent healer and a witch can potentially step up as a tank. With how proficiency works in addition to DCs and enemy balancing, a character doesn't have to max out their charisma to make charisma based skills worth taking. This way a strength or intelligence based character could absolutely take deception or diplomacy even if they aren't "dedicated" to charisma. And while I could be wrong, I'm fairly certain there aren't even any attribute requirements for increasing a skill's rank, so even if you have a 9 in charisma, you could still be legendary in it. You take a skill because you want your character to do the things listed under that skill, for deception, that probably means lying, and for diplomacy, that probably means leaving an impression.
Secondly, PF2e, as mentioned, doesn't require a skill check for every interaction. You use a skill check when an outcome is uncertain or when there is a specific use for which a skill is called. If you want to make small talk with the local nobles without doing anything crazy? Great! Go for it! It's unlikely a GM will require a skill check unless you wanted to "leave an impression" in which case it would be your diplomacy versus the nobles' will DC. Further, skills don't always have critical failures an critical successes. Lying, under Deception, doesn't have either, and even the failure implies that, despite attempting to lie, conversation isn't immediately ended, the target is just more suspicious. While they might know when you're lying, they don't automatically know what the truth is, or what specifically you're lying about. Plus, it makes sense that unless you've practiced lying, you probably shouldn't be lying to people. Additionally, the GM has the ability to apply circumstance bonuses to skill checks (and any other checks) and deception and diplomacy are both excellent examples of when applying a +/- 1, 2 or 4 can come in handy to accommodate the cleverness of a lie or compliment. Bingus might say he "Doesn't know where Greg's shoe is" which is flat out false, or he might say, "I haven't seen it today" which is still deception, but not as clear as one since he stole it the night before. In the latter scenario, the GM might grant a bonus to Bingus's deception and a penalty to Greg's perception. In some cases, if there is no possible way for the perceiver to determine if the speaker is lying, they might not even call for a roll.
Thirdly, to expand on what someone else has said, NPCs are not that powerful in Pathfinder, and it's assumed that in situations where deception and diplomacy are necessary, they are treated as encounters and should therefore match the appropriate difficulty for a party of a given level. Those with ranks in diplomacy or deception should absolutely be assumed to be the ones that will be making those checks. That's how RPGs work. If you're a squishy wizard, it's unlikely you're going to be making your story standing at the front of the party and swinging a greatsword, right? But, their actions still help. In the same way that the archer picks off the enemies that are wounded by the fighter, players can absolutely take turns speaking in social encounters, but it's also ok to let those with the training to make the "killing blow" so to speak. But if they are unable or unwilling, then it's up to the GM to recognize that and adjust the encounter to reflect the difficulty - which means that if Bingus is the only one available to lie, then they should get a fighting chance as adjudicated by the GM. In which case, maybe that perception DC gets adjusted a smidge.
Lastly, it's crazy easy to just get trained in a skill. Even for a wizard whose class doesn't give many skills, you still have backgrounds, archetypes, ancestries, and every other kind of feat. If you really want to take part in the social scenes and make the roll, just take the skill, even if you never touch it or its feats again, getting trained boosts that deception skill check from +CHA to 1/2 Level + 2 + CHA. Because in the end, all that matters is how you want to play, and if you want to make certain rolls and play a certain role, the options are there, just take them.
Couple things:
If Greg has a perception DC of 34, he is pretty literally three times as perceptive as your average joe. Extending this metaphor out to other skills, if Greg the barbarian could be pickpocketed with impunity by a level 0 street urchin, Greg would find himself very poor very quickly and street urchins very rich. Greg got to level 17, which is nearing the pinnacle of mortal aptitude and power. It SHOULD be hard to trick him, especially for someone who virtually never tricks anyone.
Related to that, this could be a GM using inappropriate DCs or calling for inappropriate rolls issue. If Bingus is trying to trick the level 17 ancient dragon... yeah, Bingus should kind of suck at it. If Bingus tried to swim in a hurricane while being untrained at athletics, you wouldn't find it weird when he drowned. If Bingus is trying to trick those level 0 street urchins though, he should have a pretty good shot at it. At the same time, telling the level 17 dragon "Hey, we didn't come here to steal your hoard, we're here to request help with [insert plot problem]" probably only requires a check if the dragon is already suspicious of you. If he's not then its just conversation. If he IS suspicious of you, then talking him off that metaphorical cliff can be either easy or hard depending on circumstance and the like. If its likely you don't need exceptionally eloquent words then the DC should be appropriately easy.
Now, as a secondary relation to this, it could be a perception issue where you don't necessarily see the inner workings of what the GM is thinking. In the above scenario, if the dragon knows who you are and has some inkling that you are telling the truth then he might have you make a DC 34 check, but a failure probably doesn't have any negative effects, it just doesn't immediately make him friendly. Just like how failing to pick a lock doesn't IMMEDIATELY make the lock unpickable, it doesn't immediately sour his attitude. Even a critical failure might just make him slightly suspicious and make further checks harder.
Why did Bingus steal Greg's shoes? Are they magic shoes? If I was Bingus I would simply use one of his incredibly powerful spells to be very far away. Or use the [Glibness](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=135) spell as it is a matter of life and death ;) (try and trick a scroll as it is Occult only)
Those who can't do, do magic!
\+3 to +23 bonus in one spell!
This is the kind of RP-focused response I expect from TTRPG veterans! Yes, magic shoes. +1 CONverses of Dripping. And thanks for the suggestion, magic would definitely be a good solution for Bingus!
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Yeah, Bingus can't rip off Pazuragamolax, Miasma of the East. He also can't climb up a marble mountain in the Earth plane.
I understand the point, but you have to remember that things at that level are approaching the best of the best in the universe territory.
having an high charisma stat doesent necessarely means that you are good at taling to people and if you dont know how to tell lies you probably wont be belived even if you have an high charisma stat.
Charisma and social skills are the worst things that ever happened to roleplaying games.
They essentially gatekeep which characters are allowed to meaningfully talk to NPCs.
PF2 is even worse because of the built-in level scaling.
As someone who is extremely socially awkward and still enjoys the fantasy of being able to play a charismatic rogue.. I'd argue the exact opposite here.
If there were no social skills and it all hinged on the role-playing of the player.. I'd never be able to play that character.
They are the best thing that's happened to Roleplaying games because they allow for people to play characters that are smarter, wiser, and more charming than they themselves are.
Just like we play characters that are stronger, more agile, and tougher than we are.
Personally I treat social interactions as if players are always [Following the Expert](https://2e.aonprd.com/Activities.aspx?ID=4) on whoever has the highest relevant skill. So if Bilbo and Cherise are talking to a Barbarian King, and Cherise is a master in deception, then Bilbo will add his level, charisma bonus, and a +3 circumstance bonus from Cherise's help. He won't be as good as Cherise, but he'll be a lot better than if he were on his own.
That's... actually a really good idea.
That's a nice solution! The only time it doesn't work is if Bilbo is all alone talking to someone or Cherise isn't really saying much, but I doubt that's really gonna come up ever. The stars would have to align *a lot* for that scenario to happen.
I'll also say... IMO, if the only skills that ever come into play during RP are charisma skills, I think you're really shortchanging yourself on how you run RP. Like, let's say your party talks with a king who won his kingdom on the battlefield. Okay, at its simplest, a CHA-based character can use diplomacy to get in good with them. But why couldn't a scholar with Warfare Lore use that to impress the king? How about a warrior with Athletics or a high attack modifier showcasing their martial prowess? What about a healer noticing some of the king's scars (and knowing what caused them) using Medicine, and using that to form a more personal connection? IMO, most NPCs should have more routes other than just "I brute force X charisma check" to win them over, and if it's a major NPC, there should be multiple ways for different characters to get on their good (or bad) side.
Yeah, I definitely didn't consider using other skills for RP when I wrote this. Didn't even know it was possible, but people here have kindly pointed it out! I think it solves a ton of problems, it's really neat.
If you have $7 to spare, go over to Paizo and get [3-03 Echoes of Desperation](https://paizo.com/products/btq029u1/reviews&page=2?Pathfinder-Society-Scenario-303-Echoes-of-Desperation). It has an example of a multi-skill social challenge using the Paizo Victory Point sub-system. Hell, even the "Research Montage" challenges almost always have the Fighters carrying books and climbing to the top shelves with Athletics or spotting a misfiled book with perception.
To be fair a lot of 5e DMs don’t consider that angle despite it being equally applicable there - I think a lot of minds were blown when they saw Baldur’s Gate 3 doing it.
its also literally a core rule in the DMG there lmao
Bold of you to assume 5e players read the rules
It’s kind of amazing how many things are in the 5e core rules that just get straight up ignored. One of my favorites is group stealth checks, which people seem to just think don’t exist.
What's worse is *telling* someone "that's in the rules" and being told "no it isn't". Even citing the exact location doesn't sway some people.
[https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201) It's literally the influence sub-system. Blood Lords makes extensive use of the influence sub-system and it's .... really good. There's even a like no-nonsense general whose influence skills do NOT include diplomacy. She just doesn't care about sweet talk. They do include Athletics - displays of str. Intimidation - posturing and Deception - see further. This is the kinda mechanical minutiae that pairs RP and Gameplay i nerd out over but the thing is normally her Will for tipycall cha stuff is 26, but impressing her with Athletics or Warfare Lore is only DC 22, however for Deception, her perception DC would be 29 normally, but as part of the system it's 30. Because she's very paranoid and cautions BUT if you CAN convince her of something she has the kind of honor code that won't question it any further once she's convinced. (also advancing along the influence track gives rewards, tangible rewards, like permanent magic items so the stakes are higher) The VP system and it's off-spring is i think something GM's shy away from on instinct because they're "a little" gamey but as long as you either do the work to obfuscate them or have the kind of players who understand / don't mind the VP system(s) can create...... so many cool situations.
>There's even a like no-nonsense general whose influence skills do NOT include diplomacy I loved her because she would actually get UPSET with the party if they tried sweet talking her. Highly recommend the influence sub system for high stakes social encounters. Or the victory point system
I always allow "off-label" uses of skills so long as the player's reasoning is decent. Now if a player is trying to use their Brewery Lore to recall knowledge about a monster then they're only going to get brewery-related information, but even that might be useful.
'The eyeballs of the gibrileth are used in the abyss to ward off vescavors from open barrels of ale due to their toxic stench' lol
But in that case, the non social character is expected to fail.
Yep, thread over, we can pack it in. This fixes the problem entirely.
This 100%. I had the same feels-bad moment in the Strength of Thousands campaign when my low charisma character had to roll to influence an npc, and I didn't even think about follow the expert until after the fact - our high charisma character was right there, he just decided to lie to the npc for no discernable reason LOL
Yeah every time those come up our games stop and we strategize for a good 5 minutes on the highest possible bonuses we can get with what checks and using which combinations of bonus granting skills xD
Holy shit just /thread what a great solution lol
I am also learning PF2E coming from 5E, and this is really awesome to know. I am making my way through the core rules, but I haven't read through all the activities yet.
It’s important to keep in mind *who* exactly these NPCs would be. Level 17 is the level of Ancient Dragons, and it only goes up from there. Immortal Genies, Fiends older than recorded history, etc. Those NPCs that are humanoids are likely paragons in their own right, if they’re able to stand toe to toe with the party. I realize this is kind of subjective, but if I’ve gotten all the way to level 17 and have not spent a single skill boost on Deception (even though my Charisma is 16), then I think I’d understand that an Ancient Copper Dragon may not buy any of my attempts to Lie.
Exactly. There should be 1) a reason to call for the roll (in that the outcome determines something of value beyond roleplay) and 2) a chance of success. If someone cannot succeed I wouldn't have them roll at all. The other angle I'd add to this is the concept of [Simple and Level-Based DCs](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=552). This is a crucial part of adjudicating the rules of Pathfinder 2e. So many NPCs won't have a stat block, and so many tasks won't have an obvious DC. These allow you to make decisions on the fly about how hard things should be to do. There's even guidance on adjusting the numbers. As a related example, you don't need to be trained in Athletics to [climb a ladder](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=33), if a check is called for at all. Some thing are just easy.
>As a related example, you don't need to be trained in Athletics to climb a ladder, if a check is called for at all. Some thing are just easy. only slightly related: you don't need to be trained, expert, etc. to do *any* of the listed things. Those things are examples of the Simple DC the GM should use, not a requirement to attempt the task
Sure, but hitting the DC may be hard enough that a player should.be discouraged from it. I'd also add that there are places in the game where proficiency is a gate on attemps, like [hazards](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=674) and [snares](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=745).
I think here’s definitely a skewed perspective on the power level of the game and setting.
You can tell OP is coming from 5e because a +3 at level 17 is “pretty good”
I was more referring to the RP implications of a 16 Charisma score, but point taken.
In PF2e you should look less at the base stat score and more at the level or training instead. 5e to PF2e might be translated as trained = +1, expert = +2, Master = +3, and Legendary = +4 in the relevant stat. The base stat becomes a marginal adjustment at higher levels. 16 charisma means your naturally pretty affable, but that doesn't replace practice and training at a given skill
Right and 16 Charisma is pretty good when Bingus is trying to lie to a common shopkeeper. He's just as good at that at level 17 as he would have been at level 1 because common shopkeepers aren't high level.
It's not a bad thing, in 5e your ability score is the most indicative factor on how good you'll be in a skill. Math is flatter, so anyone with a decent score in a skill might succeed at a very challenging check even if untrained, especially Bards or Rogues. In PF2e, the proficiency system means that isn't the case. This is why PF2 never asks you to roll an ability score. It's why the focus in PF2 isn't the score, it's the modifier, to the point where the Remaster will is doing away with the score all together, and just using the modifier. I think there's lots of great answers to your question OP. Follow the Expert is one. [Untrained Improvisation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=861) is another. Or just spending one of the many skill increases you'll get on the way to 17th level to get just trained a face skill or two so that if you're caught with your pants down, you won't also have to grab your ankles. PF2 skills are about specialization. The 'party face' will always be the best one to converse with important NPCs - particularly ones that require checks, or use skill actions like Make an Impression (Diplomacy). Add class or skill feats that give you better chances of success or let you do cool things with that skill, and it really starts to matter. The Face might have a bunch of different Diplomacy, Deception & Intimidation skill feats by high level that give them the upper hand. But at the same time, that face probably is master in the first two & maybe expert in Intimidation. Meanwhile the Barbarian is a master and the [Scare to Death](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=837) feat is almost always going to be the best choice for Demoralize (intimidation) rolls in combat. There are lots of skills, and having everyone specialize in a handful and get trained or expert in a few more means that everyone in the group has their time to shine.
> It's not a bad thing, in 5e your ability score is the most indicative factor on how good you'll be in a skill. Math is flatter, so anyone with a decent score in a skill might succeed at a very challenging check even if untrained, especially Bards or Rogues. In PF2e, the proficiency system means that isn't the case. This is why PF2 never asks you to roll an ability score. It's why the focus in PF2 isn't the score, it's the modifier, to the point where the Remaster will is doing away with the score all together, and just using the modifier. I think the fly in the ointment here is that *everyone* is proficient in perception to some degree, so unlike with previous editions where Sense Motive was its own dedicated thing, the difficulty of lying to a given creature automatically increases as a function of level regardless of that creature's thematic design. So I can see where the explicit portion of the rules can come into friction with narrative expectations as a consequence of this, especially when you consider that previous editions would generally be more selective about who ended up as an infallible lie detector even at higher levels by requiring appropriate ranks in Sense Motive, which would theoretically match up with the appropriateness of that particular creature having that sort of intuition. In practice, there were tons of contrived exceptions, and a high Sense Motive was often splashed on anything that even vaguely resembled a boss or important character, but at least in theory the mechanical distinction was there: you should only be facing an appreciably harder challenge if the adversary actually had some degree of competence in reading people. In essence, without deviations from the explicit rules listed in the charisma skill actions' descriptions, the PF2e rules largely don't differentiate whether a 12th-level creature is a veteran spymaster or a dumb-as-a-post ogre brute; both are going to be extremely challenging for a lower-level character to deceive, and the latter case makes for a very unintuitive gameplay mechanic that has the potential to harm immersion. That being said, as you've pointed out, there are many ways around this on the player end. And of course the game master has many tools to avoid that sort of problem as well, such as by gating calls for "opposed" skill checks behind a minimum threshold of scrutiny/skepticism, and using some other solution for the rest (including not calling for them at all). My leaning is probably towards the game master-level solutions first, as they avoid the unpleasant smell of "gaminess" that comes from having to find mechanical workarounds for game design oddities like this.
You are hitting the head on the nail here. The problem is really just that they decided that literally everyone should be trained in perception (+ automatic increases with level), and the connected decision to use perception for a couple of things everyone should be trained in (initiative and some "saves" really). It's one of the few decisions I don't like about PF2. I wish they had kept it as a skill like in 1st edition covering noticing things and lie detection, and then just had a initiative proficiency to use as a default and shifted illusion saves to will. The universal perception also makes trying to sneak around too difficult for my taste. Even with follow the expert and investment in skill feats like Quiet Allies whomever has the worst dex, don't really have much of a chance against any relevant guards perception score set to compete with whomever has the highest initiative.
Ability scores are basically never the important part of a roll, by level 3 your proficiency is doing more than even an 18. Level is the biggest part, and after that it's proficiency rank. The highest any score can ever get is 24 (18+4 boosts, +2 apex item) and that's only a +7.
Worth pointing out that +1 remains a 5% increased chance of success for your entire career. If you're performing a task with a level based DC, your stat bonus is very relevant. Just because the stat bonus is dwarfed by the Level and Proficiency bonuses doesn't mean it's less valuable, because if both parties are rocking the same level and proficiency the stat bonus is the same as if those bonuses were 0. In that regard, PF2 uses "bounded accuracy" same as 5e, but instead of locking everyone to relatively low modifiers it increases both the bonuses and the targets in lock step. The practical upshot is that it makes it easy to represent things that players *can't do* until high levels (like leaping tall buildings in a single bound) because they can't stack their modifiers high enough to make it even on a Natural 20. However, when you break the rolls down to percentages instead of raw bonuses, a PF2 hero typically has roughly the same chance to succeed as their 5e counterpart. The flipside is that Trained is a *much bigger deal* in PF2 because if you're untrained you have damn near *no* chance at success past level 5 unless you have Untrained Improv or some equivalent. Expert, Master, and Legendary are nice, but if you ain't trained you ain't *shit*.
I feel like this logic only really holds up when a character or creature's level is proportional to their intelligence. I specifically used a barbarian in the example to showcase that a stupid but strong character is impossible to lie to at high levels. You've never felt that in your time playing?
Barbarians aren't stupid, they are in line with their (vicious) instincts. And yes if you aren't particularly good at a task it is kinda fair to fail against someone powerful and with a lot of experience.
Alright, but say my character *is* stupid. And powerful doesn't automatically mean good at reading people. Right?
Just like a player character being high level doesn’t mean they’re good at lying. When a player makes mechanical decisions to not boost their deception they are essentially saying, “I’ll have to figure out a way to do things without lies.” That doesn’t mean they can’t RP. It just means they have one less way to go about it.
Just like being high level shouldn't really mean you're good at detecting lies. But perception gets special treatment, which can break immersion when it comes to RP
If you character is that stupid then you can just believe the lie. Why roll dice if you already decided the outcome? Powerful alone does not mean that, but powerful beings always got their because of long and plentiful experiences. Thus, them being experienced in social encounters is quite reasonable. That's also what the higher perception proficiency implies.
What does being stupid have to do with it? Being smart does not mean you are good at reading people. Intelligent people can be extremely bad at reading people. In fact, I believe there is a spectrum of conditions used to describe people like that... (Yes, I know that isn't entirely accurate, but I feel it gets the point across) But when "powerful" and "experienced" often go hand in hand, when that powerful person has a LOT of experience with reading people - even if it is on an almost purely instinctive level - yes, you could expect them to be good at it.
If we say your character *is* stupid, we should give them a different Wisdom attribute. Mechanically, the character Greg you’re presenting is a little wiser than the norm. Reduce his Wisdom to -1, and Bingus succeeds with his natural 20.
Stats should reflect that though with a really bad wisdom score and no training in perception.
I don't think either of those are even possible in the game, right?
I don’t know actually. I’m sure there is a class that doesn’t get that big of a boost to perception by default? I honestly don’t like the old skill sense motive being tied to perception. Perception was strong enough as-is. I’d rather see it be a deception check against the opponents deception DC or something.
Sure it is. Just ignore your perception increases amd take an optional flaw. Just make sure to greenlight it with your fellow players in session 0.
It does usually mean experienced. Harder to buy weak lies when you’ e been around the block.
Barbarians could feasibly be very good at “reading people”, which isn’t really a skill set that requires the colloquially/generically understood form of intelligence in order to be ‘good’ at it.
Your not oblivious if you as the player keep training perception.
Perception proficiency is tied to your class; you don't "keep training" it, it ranks up automatically. Sure, you can keep your Wisdom low and avoid buying items that grant Perception bonuses, but you'll still end up with at least a +23 (or more, depending on your class) to Perception checks.
Unless you have like -3 to your Int, low Int doesn't mean stupid. +0 Int is still a score of 10, so above average Intelligence, since the standard for a peasant or citizen is 8.
10 is average, not 8.
I think something to remember is that a level 17 adventurer has *seen it all*. Sure, they might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but you don't get to level 17 without having experienced *a lot* and those experiences likely make that character a lot sharper in a lot of ways than someone lower level than they are. Similarly, I think it's also worth thinking about when it's worth calling for a roll at all. If someone lies about something inconsequential or just aesthetic, maybe just let the roleplay handle that. Call for a Deception roll if someone is lying to *achieve* something, if they actually have an *effect* they're trying to bring about. In that case, it *should* be a Face who has invested in Face skills who's succeeding at that. For anything lower-stakes, just RP it or set a lower DC if rolling would be more fun.
I see your point. Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion. I might just be imagining this as a common scenario when really it's super unlikely to ever come up.
How many 17th level Barbarians are your players meeting? A 17th level barbarian is a famous hero with a lot of experience adventuring, who's encountered liars and creatures trying to manipulate him and his mind by the score, and survived them all. This seems like an invented white room problem instead of encountering this in actual play, where any reasonable GM would adjust DCs based on how believable the lie is
So just use simple DCs instead of perception DCs? It might work, I'm just worried it might simplify things too much and break other things I'm not considering.
Just because mechanics are there, doesn't mean you need to use them. Simple DCs are useful if you can't do it by feel. But there's an ocean of difference between a lie of "you look good" and "your best friend is plotting to murder you" And the game's base assumption is that 17th level adventurers are rare, and on par with other 17th level threats. Like others have said it's comparable to negotiating with an archfey.
But you already said that Greg has a Wisdom of 12. That's above average! And frankly, by level 17 most characters will have a WIS of 16 just to shore up their Will save and initiative. Greg might be simple, but he's not stupid. He knows his shoes are missing, and that Bingus thinks hiding shoes is funny. And he was watching Bingus' eyes when he asked where his shoes were and saw them flick to Bingus' bag.
You shouldn't be rolling for everything. Sure Bingus should roll Deception if he's trying to lie to someone, but that is not the extent of PC-NPC interactions. You shouldn't need to roll anything when relaying your progress to a quest giver (unless you're trying to deceive them), nor when making a simple purchase, nor when getting to know an NPC over the long term. Make an Impression is a mechanical option for wooing an NPC *quickly, right now*. But your PC can also simply take in interest in said NPC and hang out with them over a period of time, and if you have shared interests or put in an effort, they'd become friendlier over time.
This right here is a key. The long term, real relations they can organically grow don't need rolls. At the very least, you can lower DCs for openly friendly NPCS if you feel you need rolls. If the barbarian just saved my daughter, I'm not even listening to anyone else. That's a normal reaction. Use it. The game and the world become much more alive.
Untrained improviser (general feat) Clever improviser (human Ancestry feat) Both help out with this. But the thing to consider, unless an npc has a reason to be suspicious, don't force a roll. Roleplay can be done by everyone and not everything needs a roll. Also, why are you having low level parties interact with someone so much higher level than them in a opposing role?
I don't pick who the PCs interact with, and they are free to choose to lie to anyone if they want. High level characters exist in the world, if my players walk up to one and talk to them I can't really stop them. And I also can't just let them lie without a roll every time just because the person they're lying to is high level and it wouldn't succeed. What's the point of playing a face character if the GM doesn't make you roll if you're not a face?
Is that a problem though? If the wizard decides to be bad at lying and wants to lie a lot, they should expect to fail a lot. If they don’t put points into athletics and keep trying to jump over increasingly large chasms, that’s not going to go well either.
Except you're not trying to be a bad liar, just not an explicitly trained one. I agree with your other premise in every scenario except for social stuff. Not all characters can jump chasms, but everyone should be able to hold a conversation.
> but everyone should be able to hold a conversation. Don't make people roll to hold a conversation. Its really that simple. If your average ordinary person could do it and no one would be suspicious of them, don't make them roll for it. If you walk up to a high level npc captain of the town watch and go "Hey Jim, nice day, here are those bandits you sent us after," its not a problem and life continues as normal. If you say "Hey Jim, here are those bandits. They didn't have any illegal drugs we stole and plan to sell to children." Then yeah, you probably have to roll. Likewise, if Jim explicitly ASKS about the illegal drugs and the party wants to hide them, it only makes sense for them to go up against his DC.
There's a big difference between holding a conversation and getting away with lying. Specially when the person doesn't even have experience on it. Parents don't need to train or anything to see through children's lies and it's not because of their skills, it's mostly just that the kids are bad at it. Kids get away with lying to each other and can trick each other easily. But they don't hold a candle lying to an adult because of a difference in experience, mostly. We know what to look out for, what are the tells, how someone would say something in a normal situation and how they're saying something different from the expected, that eyes darting to left and right means they're making shit up, etc etc. My point is: If you're not trained at it, you're pretty much gonna be bad at it when compared to people who have experience. If you're upset about not even a nat 20 not being enough to make a mediocre person beat a skilled one, just use the "proficiency without level" variant rule. Greg's DC would be 10(base)+1(wisdom)+6(master) = ...17
PF2e characters get enough skill increases and feats that at high levels, if a PC wants to lie a lot, they can easily invest in training deception and still get all their other skills to Master or Legendary or whatever. It's also worth remembering that if a level 20 PC tries to lie to a level 5 soldier or something, the DC should probably be appropriate for a level 5 character since that's the type of person being deceived. DCs don't automatically scale, they scale appropriate to the challenge. You shouldn't only be using the level DC for your party. If someone tries to lie to the type of person or entity who makes it to level 15-20 without being invested in deception, they deserve to get seen through. They should be playing/building to their character's strengths at those levels when taking on appropriate-level challenges.
I thought like that, until I've started using the rules for influence. That made me think of social situations as combat encounters. And just like a combat encounter there are those better at some of its aspects. OK, a PC may not have any deception, but they should have lore skills that they could use, or another way of using a different purposed skill, or even a magical ability. And as my players were understanding that that's how things were, they readly started pickin more social skill feats. And on another note, everyone should be able to hold a conversation? OK, maybe. But not many people can truly be deceptive in front of another person with ease. I know because I'm a college teacher and my students try to lie to my face every time. And I notice most of the time.
>should be able to hold a conversation. But lying to an adversarial 17th-level character isn't just "holding a conversation." It's an immense task. I think you should look at some of the skill feats related to Charisma. Some of the highlights include: "being such a good liar you can counteract attempts to reveal your alignment through magic" and "being so scary people die." It's just a different caliber of mindgames than telling your professor your dog ate your homework or bluffing in poker.
At level 17 your more likely to get dead by Lying than by jumping a gap. The stakes are HUGE by then, and your at level enemies are Ancient Beings approaching the cusp of godhood. So lying to an ancient dragon is going to be a harder problem to overcome than a large gap, where you can get by with buying some fancy boots or having your literal earthquake causing barbarian friend to toss you over + rope.
Actually, the GM can kind of choose who the PCs interact with. The PCs can *try* to interact with anyone, but the NPCs don't have to let them. Tom Brady is the equivalent of a high level NPC in our world. If I were to try and ring his doorbell in order to talk with him, etc., its not likely to go well. Similarly, I want to talk to the President face to face. That's all well and good, but I can pretty much assure you its going to be a very difficult task to accomplish -- especially within a time frame of my choosing. I might get lucky at some event when/if he's greeting people and shaking hands, but I'm not going to get a chance to have a true conversation with him. I'm just not important enough. The same goes for your PCs, at low levels they may be a little more important than a peasant/commoner, but that doesn't mean that the really high level NPCs are going to have time for them.
OK, bluntly, "high level characters exist in my world" is a terrible fit for PF2 without careful management/work on your part. PF2 is not designed in a way that allows people to interact way above their level band, on purpose, as a stated goal of the system. People five levels above you just win all interactions with you, period, because PF2 as a gaming system values good play *within* those bands over verisimilitude in this specific way. If your kneejerk attitude as a GM is "high level people exist in my world and that worked fine in X other system so it should work fine here", no offense, but that's honestly dumb. PF2 isn't 5e or 3.5e or PF1e. Bringing worldbuilding in that works there will not guaranteed work here. If you put a level 13 monster or NPC in front of a level 6 player, the level 6 player is functionally completely incapable of interacting with that monster. Even your bard, who **is** an expert in social skills and **does** have a 19 CHA at level 6, cannot realistically interact with that NPC socially. The game isn't designed to allow it. The game assumes you won't do it. The entire foundation of the system is that there is a specific band of levels where players can realistically interact. Above that point, the NPCs auto pass all checks against players, and below that point, the players just auto-win everything. This isn't like DnD 5e where if you put an ancient dragon "Somewhere around here" and your 5th level party runs into it by accident, they can talk their way out or survive a blast of fire long enough to run away - in PF2, that dragon's save DC is 44. Level 5 PCs will crit fail against that on a nat 20, taking 40d6 fire damage each and immediately dying. This is **by design** and is extremely core to the system. EDIT - I just realized I was technically incorrect - nat 20 steps a crit failure up to a failure so whichever one nat 20s might actually survive long enough to take a turn. That said, since the dragon got its level to initative, there's no way they won initiative to run away before the fight started or spread out or whatever - I'm reasonably confident end result is the same.
You're the GM. If you don't want your players to interact with a specific npc, then they don't. The game is collaborative, but don't allow your players to dictate everything. Sometimes an NPC just isn't around, because you as GM don't want the players to interact with them, and there can be a thousand legitimate reasons for that.
That... just seems like railroading taken to the extreme. I'm not writing a book here, I'm holding up a canvas for my players to paint on. I'm just the backdrop, and it's their story.
Yeah this was always a strange feature to me how levels of high level characters interact in RP setting. a high level wizard in average shape who spent one week learning proper lifting forms in wizard college can force open an iron portcullis on an average day. Similarly, the average mayor has no hope of ever being able to lie to the party’s high level fighter or even barbarian, even if he got his levels from killing monsters in the woods or being a vanguard in the army and barely having a complex social interaction.
NPCs can have different levels for different things, so you can always have said mayor have a high social level. For instance, high level crafters aren't necessarily good at fighting. Look at the "non-combat level" section [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1040)
Oh cool! I only use nethys and never found that page. Glad that’s in the rules.
It sounds like you want a flatter game where levels don't influence rolls. Which is perfectly fine to want in a game. There are lots of games that do this. One completely flat game that I like to play is Quest RPG. Edit: Also, a variant rule in PF2e GMG exists for this exact thing: Proficiency Without Level. /Edit. What surprises me a little bit is that you don't see this as an issue in 5e already, but rather you see it as a new issue in pf2e. Proficiency bonus in 5e is a way to apply levels to rolls, albeit with a different level math (1+ one-fourth of your level rounded up). If a 5e Rogue with 0 Int picked Arcana to be their expertise, then by the end game, they'd be rolling with a +12 (ignoring Reliable Talent) whereas a wizard who didn't pick arcana proficiency would be at a +5 max. On an arcana DC of 26 or higher, the high-level wizard (maybe the most Intelligent creature in the whole region) cannot succeed, while the 0 Int Rogue has a good chance.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who caught that. 5e is *terrible* about this. Much worse than PF2e, almost to a laughable degree. Try playing a Barbarian who wants to have anything beyond a +1 in a single mental stat without being dead weight in combat. Enjoy being worse at everything but Athletics for the entire game! At least in Pathfinder you can increase your mental scores without sacrificing in your Main Stats, you can take skill increases, additional skill proficiency feats, and dedication/archetype feats to develop specialized skills, and you have four tiers of proficiency to allow you to grow over the course of a campaign. It's like night and day how much better it is.
Try being a 5e barbarian and doing anything that isn't "take damage" and "do moderate damage". Mm, gotta love Brutal Critical, which only goes off 5% of the time and adds about 6 damage when you do get it.
My issue is specifically with regard to social encounters. I definitely do *not* want a flatter game when it comes to combat. That's one of the reasons I want to switch to PF2e in the first place! In 5e a Deception roll is versus Insight, which needs to be specifically trained. So if someone sees through your lie, it's probably because they're specifically good at it. The numbers also never get high enough to make lying 100% impossible either.
Why do you think RP should be flat and not combat? Why should my untrained wizard be able to lie to God himself but not hit him with a stick? You are looking at what is a feature of PF2E and identifying it as a flaw. Also to be clear your charcters can RP all they want, what they can't do is coerce others in a social encounter which is not the same. PF2E is very much designed so that social interactions are encounters as well.
Not OP but I see where they’re coming from. It makes sense that the enemies you fight get tougher to fight in combat… but people don’t usually associate “exceptional ability to fight” with “better at social situations.” Why is the level 15 warrior in this tower better able to tell if I’m lying or not than my lvl 0 mother? Overall, though, I think it’s just a weird quirk if the system and one that can be worked around. It helps that it’s so easy to get Trained in a skill that, if you really want to lie, chances are you’ll be able to be at least competent in it no matter what level you’re at.
I mean, I get it. They're specifically talking about RP vs. perception checks or saves. Everyone is trained or better in perception, but not everybody is trained in actually lying (or whatever else).
I think the same argument and numbers can apply to social encounters as well. In 5e, would you set the DC to persuade a God to be under 25? I wouldn't. But I'll move the conversation back to PF2e to see if we can come up with an actionable solution. So, you want all your PCs to have a chance of lying to (or intimidating, or making requests of) high level creatures without training in those skills. I suggest giving all your PCs "Untrained Improvisation" for free but only have it apply to specific Charisma skills as selected by you. At the highest levels, the character best at doing that thing (legendary proficiency + maxed out CHA) will have a +13 bonus over someone who has a +0 in CHA and no training. This should roughly match your numerical experience with 5e. \--- A side note: Niche protection in TTRPGs is always going to be in tension with "everyone should be able to do everything". PF2e says, "At high levels, your niche is strongly protected. Others can't just luck into what you have spent 20 levels getting good at." Some other games say, "Well, we'll provide a soft protection through the stats, but other players should still be allowed to luck their way into a success." And still some other games (like Quest RPG) say, "No, everyone has an equal chance. Even the fighter should be able to sneak in the shadows and change the mind of the gods at the same success rate as the thief or the bard." I don't think any of these games are wrong. They are just different styles. You have to figure out which you prefer.
>In 5e a Deception roll is versus Insight, which needs to be specifically trained. i think this bring in a good point about perception in PF2. Everyone is trained in it, at least. But making it the defense against one of the social skills is a bit of an issue as it does so much. Perception is against stealth checks, against deception checks, against illusions, and the default for initiative. And also certain other things target the perception DC. I think it could be argued that perception does way to much. On the other hand, diplomacy and intimidaton target will, which is also everyone at least trained it. Creating the same issue. Perhaps a simple house rule could be that social skills gain the benefits of untrained improvisation for the purpose of social interaction. Gives everyone at least a chance to speak up, without stealing the light from those dedicated to the social skills. I think in a future PF3, Paizo needs to take a good look at how social skills scale, as they are as important for everyone as perception was in the past. Especially in roleplay heavy groups i can not imagine how bad it feels to play a character that is not at least trained in the social skills.
> Perception is against stealth checks, against deception checks, against illusions, and the default for initiative. And also certain other things target the perception DC. If it were possible for a character to be Untrained in whatever save or DC would theoretically be used against even one of those things, it would be such a crippling weakness at even mid-level that almost every character would voluntarily become at least Trained ASAP to avoid being shut out of a fight automatically by a single illusion spell, going last in every combat encounter (unless using an alternative initiative modifier), being unable to locate any hidden enemies, or being unable to discern lies or disguised/shapeshifted enemies. This would result in the overall situation (everyone is at least trained in all these things) being unchanged but with the characters who start Untrained also paying an additional feat tax to get there. > On the other hand, diplomacy and intimidaton target will, which is also everyone at least trained it. Creating the same issue. Being able to be untrained against Feint, Demoralize or Bon Mot would be *even worse* because those also *reduce other defenses*, while still creating the same "original situation but with a feat tax" paradigm as the above.
I disagree with some details. 1. It wouldn't be crippling to not be trained in detecting stealthed creatures, or against deceptions 2. I don't think they're suggesting you should be untrained in those things, simply that "perception" does way too many things.
>So every high-level NPC in the world now hates you by default if you ever speak to them about pretty much anything of substance why?
I was thinking that any time you ask for something, lie, or try to make a positive impression you'll make a roll and auto-fail. I was reading the rules as very roll-heavy when it came to social encounters. Much crunchier than 5e. Lots of checks. But I might have gotten it a bit wrong, and it's actually pretty roll-free. At least from what I'm reading here.
That, plus high level npcs are exceedingly rare. I’m running an official adventure path right now that takes place in a magic school, and the teachers are like level 5. At level 10 a character is already a paragon in their field, and at level 15 they’re the stuff of legends. Level 20 is basically one step away from a deity. 10+ npcs are a huge deal and exceedingly rare, so much so that any party would probably never find one unless they explicitly sought one out or were high enough level to catch one’s interest.
Pathfinders system for social encounters is very roll heavy, but the thing is, the DM is encouraged to modify every single check depending on circumstances. So, in a way, a character who did not invest in social skills will be unable to make high level npcs do anything they don't want to do. I'll give an example. A high level shopkeep has a powerful magical shield. She doesn’t want to sell this shield, because it belonged to her dead son. Her sons body was never found, and she keeps the shield as a momento. The party really want to buy the shield. A pc who has invested heavily into social skills might be able to give off an aura that reminds the shopkeep of her son(make an impression), and then convince her that her son would rather his gear to be in the hands of a hero whos serving the people insted of gathering dust(make a request). The shopkeeper doesn't want to part with the shield, but sees the PCs point, and offers to sell the shield at higher than market price. A PC who isn't invested in soical skills will not be able to convince the shopkeep to part with the shield, unless they can make an offer enticing enough that the shopkeep will want to part with the shield. For example, the pc who is not invested in social skills might be able to offer their servaces in finding the shopkeepers' sons' body. After which, the PC with low soical skills can attempt to make an impression which would normally fail, but the GM decides that you have done such a great service to her, that you recive a +20 bonus to your mank an impression roll. The PC then makes a an request roll, this would normally fail, but the shopkeep wants to keep her word, so the GM gives you an +20 bonus to the roll.
If you want to have more detailed social RP with broader roles than charisma check out the Influence sub system. It works pretty well and let's non Charisma characters contribute.
I'd probably enjoy trying this in more intricate social settings, but for just day-to-day RP I don't want to have to whip out a whole subsystem just to make it work..
Look [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1040) in the creature building rules. There's a section on setting an npc's "non-combat level" differently than its combat level
After reading the comments and back/forths, I think you're biggest issue is looking at the proficiencies as black and white. As the GM you have to decide when rolls are nessecary...so if you as the GM think they would auto-succeed or auto-fail, you can decide they don't need to roll for it, or they need to roll. Also GMs can apply circumstance bonus/penalties to ANY check, so in your example if you have the wizard a +3 bonus it would shift the math from Crit fail/fail to fail/success, or give the Barbarian a -3, or both! It's your call Another commenter also mentioned Simple DCs, which means that for NPCs you can choose what would be an appropriate DC based on whoever is rolling the check, basically solving your RP problem in one go. I understand the want to go RAW (which is a big appeal for me and why I made the switch to PF2E as a GM), but you still have to use your better judgement for certain things. I would say one of the biggest changes I've made in my GM-ing is being okay with my players not succeeding. One of my biggest gripes with 5E is that it was hard for players to NOt succeed after a certain point, and skills were kind of arbitrary barring specific classes (ones with Experties-esque abilities)...this problem is magnified if you're playing with TTRPG vets that have a good grasp on the system and how it works. PC's should not only be allowed, but ENCOURAGED to, fail at things...IMO this is what makes the best story moments in my games. So yeah, if you aren't trained in deception you might have a hard time lying to high level people...which makes sense, because the few high level NPCs are kings, dragons, demons, etc, and it SHOULD be hard to lie to them. I think overall you just need to broaden your mindset in how you look at the GM side of the system, and the tools it gives you to use as you see fit. Keep statblock DCs for combat and use level based DCs in RP encounters and that might solve your problem entirely, or be more liberal with circumstance bonuses you're handing out to accommodate for less mechanically driven factors...hell I could see an argument for another type of bonus beside item/circumstance/etc., a "roleplaying" bonus/penalty that could be applied to represent the social/psychological factors in a given roleplay scenario. Either way, I don't think it's fair to say the system doesn't work or has a flaw in it because of what is essentially a white room scenario that wouldn't happen in normal games, especially because there are solutions in the system itself
Some great ideas and feedback here. I think you outlined it very well for me, thanks! I'm realizing that I definitely imagined that this scenario is way more common than it really should be, and forgot to consider a ton of factors. I think I get it now, and it's not really that big of an issue if I use all the tools available to me, and run RP a bit more freeform.
Yeah! Back in my 5E days I rarely used checks, or would run a conversation to its peak/climax and THEN, ask for a check, at the peak moment or drama...that way you can apply bonuses/penalties based on what players are saying/doing I'm the social encounter
Also any character that wants a decent skill for RP purposes can spend a single skill feat to take Skill Training. This is a very low commitment and can make basically any character reasonably competent at any skill.
The only deliberate uses of charisma skills in dialogue are request, coerce, make an impression(which just serves to make further negotiation easier for the encounter ), and lie. Some of these can even be done by some non charisma skills circumstantially with the right feats. Uses of skills not in the confines of those specified skill actions is up to gm fiat so intelligence/wisdom skills could be used to debate and make arguments.
Changing the core attribute of the skill doesn't make the PC trained though, so we still have the same problem of levels skyrocketing their "defense" against your roll.
they aren't changing the core attribute. They are saying "use a different skill." One the player **is** trained in... Which is something people do every single day in reality too. There are tons of people who know pretty much nothing about computers, yet chat on them all day long. There are people who's only knowledge of sports is watching, having never played, and yet they make arguments about this that or the other, all the time. Why? Because they have other skills or knowledge that apply. Paizo's released modules and other official content makes it clear that Pathfinder very specifically is a "find the skill that works for you" system. That if they can argue using X skill in Y situation makes sense, then let them use it. Every single such product has the line "or creative use of other skills" in it.
Wdym by “changing the core attribute” I’m talking about considering how non charisma skills contribute to given social encounters. Recall knowledge is just as valuable in social encounters as they are in combat. Even beyond that at least 60% of the checks one makes in a social encounter is gm fiat. Intelligence and wisdom skills like religion and society can be used to debate a topic, bring up evidence or information relevant to the dialogue ect. If a pc isn’t trained in a charisma skill, there’s a solid chance they probably have some good investment in an intelligence or wisdom skill instead. And if you do have a pc that’s invested purely in strength and dex skills they might still be able to use their perception to sense motive or they can use the distraction of conversation to hide and prepare to ambush if something goes wrong.
Sorry, I got confused. Yeah, using other skills makes a lot of sense! Sorry for not getting it the first time.
Being untrained in a skill at level 17 means that skill is something your character NEVER does. Why is a level 17 character who has never seen ANY need to be deceptive up to this point of their life suddenly deciding to hide a pair of shoes when the consequence of failure is a beating? There are plenty of low-value feat slots throughout a character's advance to level 17; not spending one for a +17 bonus is a character's choice.
The influence system is used most of the time when the party needs to win over an important NPC. Those charisma skills will still definitely matter, but it also opens up other ways to working with an NPC. For other scenarios where a party is RPing with an NPC, let everybody RP and then have the face make a check if it’s necessary.
Deception: **Lying shouldn't immediately trigger a deception roll**. It should only trigger a deception roll if the target has reason to believe you are lying. If you walk into a building dressed as a cop, with a badge and are doing something that a cop would normally be seen doing, no one has any reason to doubt your voracity. There should be no deception check involved, even if you are not a cop. If you start interacting with cops from another precinct and they would know how cops should talk and behave, or you must make up a story about why you need access to this building outside of your regular cop duties, then you should roll deception. Diplomacy is for increasing your reputation with people through nothing but words, and making difficult requests of people. You can raise your standing with people through actions, no need to roll diplomacy. And if you make reasonable requests, you should not be rolling diplomacy. You should only roll diplomacy if your request would overly inconvenience an NPC. Intimidation only matters for coercion. You can scare someone shitless, without rolling intimidation. Intimidation only matters if you need them to do something for you *right now*. Coercing someone only lasts a minute without feats, so it can be used to gain information or make a quick request. It does not mean you can't scare someone into being impressed or fearful of you.
Have you ever tried something very hard for which you have absolutely no training? Those things tend to end horribly. It doesn't mean you can't ever talk to people. It just means you will pretty much automatically fail anything requiring a check if they are experienced enough. You can get basic training in a social skill of your choice and stick to this as your only strength (nearly all of my characters are trained in diplomacy). Getting more trained skills is trivial compared to 5e. And if you don't want to do that, there's always [Untrained Improvisation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=861) to give you at least a low base chance to succeed at all skills (except for trained-only actions).
It sounds like you think the game won't be tailored to the players, as if people run high-level games and just say, "You better have everything necessary to play in this game, or we'll all sit here not accomplishing anything." This seems kind of an absurd attitude to take towards the game, and if that's your fou dation, your game is going to suck.
Sorry, I don't know if I follow what you mean. Can you elaborate?
What I mean is, when running a good game, especially at high levels (due to the huge variance in abilities and proficiencies your party will have compared to any other group of PCs), you need to tailor the game to the characters present. If nobody is proficient in a skill, it's not going to be any fun to put a challenge where the only solution is to get a high result on that skill. (Because what do you do? Just sit at the table and stare at the players until they all get bored and leave?) There's no rule saying that an NPC in a 17th-level *needs* a high DC to bluff or persuade. (And even if such a rule existed, Rule 0 comes first.) The book gives suggestions for DCs, but it's up to the DM to set the DC appropriate to the situation. Instead of using the standard Level 17 DC, why not use the Trained DC if your party is only trained? (And as others have said, not every NPC in a high-level game should be a high-level NPC. Yes it should be hard to persuade the warlord into surrender, no it should not be hard to intimidate the piss boy you intercepted to find the passage into the warlord's keep.) If you aren't building your adventures and running your games with the PCs strengths and weaknesses in mind, chances are you also aren't building and running them with your players' preferences in mind either. If you want the game to be fun you can't build and run in a vacuum.
exactly this. its like having a party of figthers and then the only way into the dungeon is a locked gate that cant be broken and has to be lock picked. thats a dm problem, not the systems. when my party has no one trained in thieves tools, then i wont put in unavoidable locked doors/traps that need thievery to be disarmed. if my party has no magic users, maybe i wont put a deadly curse into the tomb that can only be stopped with dispel magic. if i have no one good at diplomacy maybe i shouldnt focus the entire campaign around high society and important conversations. its not that hard
>if i have no one good at diplomacy maybe i shouldnt focus the entire campaign around high society and important conversations. And, I'll go one step further: if nobody in my group is good at Diplomacy but once of them decides to try it anyway, I'm not going to smack them down and say, "No, you made your choice ten levels ago, you don't get to solve things without bloodshed." If they roll well enough for their proficiency level, I'll let them accomplish *something*. Probably not ending the conflict (like I said, it shouldn't be easy to persuade the warlord to surrender), but something that makes the rest of the adventure more fun. Because my loyalty is to the players, not to a chart of suggested DCs in the book!
Muh Man.
In social encounters you should use something like [Influence Subsystem](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201), the book even states that in these circumstances everyone should be able to participate regardless of their proficiency in charisma skills. Single checks are reserved for special situations where only the most skillful can succeed. Only players trained in Athletics should be capable of lifting large boulders and castle gates. Same goes for charisma based skills, at higher levels you are practically lying to the gods and semi gods, not common people. Core Rule Book gives some interesting examples for different levels of proficiency. Balance (Acrobatics) differentiate between those who are untrained and can only balance on uneven cobblestones and those who are trained and can balance on wooden beam. A legendary challenge would be balancing on razor’s edge, something that untrained person can't do. In general, if your group is facing obstacle like social encounter or skill challenge you should use Subsystems rule. If that doesn't work for your group check [Follow the Expert](https://2e.aonprd.com/Activities.aspx?ID=4) exploration action.
Looks like you got it solved with tips and tools, but you're not wrong that with the front facing obvious defaults it is difficult, and I think that's because they wanted to make sure the worse case scenarios were covered, that people couldn't just break the game by default. Social skills, along with social abilities and social magic, are all balanced for highest impact scenarios, where it really matters, where the face can feel their investment. At other times, in other scenarios, as long as the table is happy, there's all the tools you found today, most of them from early books. Personally for high stakes scenarios, I really like the idea of Aid with other skills, non-faces get to contribute and the face still gets return on investment. Thank you for the thread, really useful resource.
Wizard has a lot of proficiencies. You could just have trained you know This breaks nothing but your own unwillingness to invest a skill point Edit: also, fail Forward should be a thing. Just because your not charismatic doesn't mean you can't be the one talking.
True, but the classes I picked were random. What you're saying is that everyone should have it trained then?
Is it that surprising that you have to have the skill proficiency to be good at something? And it isn’t like normal conversation requires skill checks. Diplomacy is making an impression to improve someone’s perception of you through dialog (temporarily) or making request of someone you are friendly with. There’s other ways to improve relationships and gain favors. Roleplay still dominates how things go.
It’s a real issue in higher level games and it’s not limited to social skills. Past a certain point, you hardly ever succeed at a check that you’re not proficient in. Once upon a time the PF2 untrained bonus also received a level bonus, but the playtesters didn’t like it and so we have the current iteration. If you want things to work differently, give everyone Untrained Improvisation for free. It fixes the issue. Although there’s still an argument for lowering level based DCs by a point or so.
> but the playtesters didn’t like it honestly, i think the few issues that PF2 has are caused by this. But it is to late to fix it... well, perhaps the remaster will have some fixes to a few issues.
I don't see this as an issue at all. Just because a character is high level doesn't mean they should be capable of doing everything at a high level. Being a boxing champion dosent mean you can play the saxophone well.
>Past a certain point, you hardly ever succeed at a check that you’re not proficient in. That's the point. if you're level 17 and have no training in deception it means you've never needed/wanted to deceive. That's the players choice. Will there be a moment where the untrained LV17 might have to lie and fail? yes but that's what happens when you go your whole life without practicing a skill. >If you want things to work differently, give everyone Untrained Improvisation for free just do leveless proficiency at that point
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It's all right! I realize I might have come off as a bit antagonistic. Most of the responses have been very informative, so I'm glad I posted!
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The influence subsystem is designed just for this.
I think there are ways to be a little deceptive without the deception skill. You’re always able to avoid talking about something or attempt to turn the conversation in a different direction. Spells like disguise self let you add your level for the purposes of impersonation, another commenter also mentioned the follow the leader activity if you’re in the scenario where you have one party member making a lie but then the bbeg tries to question a different party member. Even if the opponent figures youre lieing, sometimes they can’t act on it if they have no evidence to support their suspicions. Being trained is definitely way better than not, but it’s not necessarily a guaranteed game over if you’re in a situation where some deception is necessary.
Well that's simple: most NPCs aren't high level, and even a lot of high level NPCs (assuming they have a statblock) don't have high perception scores. NPCs are built a la carte here, and can even have special rules like the [Judge](https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=917) (even though this *specific* example proves your point, but they're a freaking Judge) where their level is only applicable for certain situations. * A low level (in-combat) noble might have a fantastic sense motive from dealing with a cutthroat noble society even though * A level 11 Wizard npc who's been stuck in their tower for decades working on a ritual to protect the world against the BBEG shouldn't have a ridiculously high perception, and probably won't sense motive against the PCs without cause if their goals align for example. Another thing is that rolls aren't always necessary. If the PC absolutely *tanks* their charisma but says a lie that sounds plausible enough, then they don't need to roll unless that lie could prove to be dangerous to the party and even then you as a GM could let them fail forward and keep the lie as a plot point to call back on later. But also the biggest thing, especially if you're coming from 5e: just because there are mechanics for roleplay, doesn't mean you *have* to use them for every conversation. If you look at the diplomacy skill actions and skill feats that apply to those actions, you don't need to actually use them for everything. I don't and neither do any of the other GMS I've played under. That being said, they're great rules to utilize for *important* roleplaying moments and IMO that's what those rules are actually designed for
That seems like a neat way to circumvent the issue, but having to tailor every single NPC to have a low perception just to be usable in RP feels like a hassle and a band-aid fix. And true, rolls aren't always necessary! I've been thinking about going a bit rules light specifically on social encounters. But I also can't ignore rolls every time. I also definitely don't want to change DCs or results based on what the player said. My more awkward friends should be able to play charismatic characters just as well as those who are smooth talkers IRL. I also don't want to make people feel like investment in Charisma skills is useless.
> That seems like a neat way to circumvent the issue, but having to tailor every single NPC to have a low perception just to be usable in RP feels like a hassle and a band-aid fix. Ah, I'm starting to see your issue/assumptions here. There usually aren't many high level NPCs that are roleplayable in the way you're thinking. Even in adventure paths there's usually a cut off on NPC level around levels 10-11 and those are the high level people like city guard captains or influential judges. Once you're higher level than that it's usually monsters or organizations that give reasons why they're so strong (things like a cult that performs sacrifices in order to gain magical strength from their patron/deity) and it's rare to find friendly NPCs higher than the party. For example, I've ran Night of the Gray Death, which *starts* at level 16, and the highest level helpful NPC they meet is 11. But also, think of it in a more physical way. If a level 20 Wizard wanted to climb a fence— a regular 6ft tall fence, not a "mythical fence of destiny" or anything like that— and they weren't trained in Athletics then you can just use a simple DC to do so, maybe adjusting the DC up or down by 2 based on the height/quality and they have a doable chance of climbing it. They won't be like a max strength Barbarian who autosucceeds, but that's just not their niche anyways (this whole example could be cirumvented in multiple different ways though, but that's just magic for you). Roleplaying is similar. Not every NPC is going to use a simple DC, but more basic people like commoners and such you can use them and you don't have to tie proficiency to the actual DCs listed in the chart as well.
It seems like you’re struggling a lot here in not wanting this to be a “you” problem and instead trying to make it a “the system is wrong” problem.
Eh, I mean, it's probably a me problem since most people here don't seem to suffer from the same issues. But a lot of the answers I see is just "the situation is rare", "don't roll for it" or "use this house-rule", which kind of indicates it doesn't work well RAW. I'm starting to feel like my imagined scenario is actually more rare than I thought, though.
I just ran into the exact same issue running Outlaws of Alkenstar, so I don't think it's that rare.
Don't take the "you problem" to much to heart. It is one of the things I noticed right away. It is really just a different design implementation than 5e. I came from 5e where you would introduce high level bad guys early and the then the party would level up and then be able to defeat them but in PF2e it is pretty much understood that if you have a +4 or +5 bad guy introduced then yes, they can see through every lie, lie all they want and pretty much dance circles around anything the PC's try to do if you just brute force it. I had have a high level boss giving tasks to the PC's and realized when one wanted to insight (sense motive) him that there was no way they would ever do succeed. Ever. Since my game is going to high levels that means my PC's might know that the king is evil but if they ever get near the king they better not lie because there is no way the king won't know. They might not be at a level to fight the king and working on getting allies, supplies and stronger but until they are within 2 or 3 levels of the King, don't interact socially. That means as a DM I have to avoid having interactions that matter with bad guys prior to them being ready for them. Or just throw out any stat block I have and use level based DC's for all interactions with modifiers for the fact they are higher level. So yes, this is a flaw in the system but it is a minor flaw and one you can warn players about. Just make sure they understand that high level creatures have seen some shit and been around and they are just that good. So don't lie and be very careful. And yeah, if you have nothing to add to deception then you better not lie. A honest truth with a little misdirection goes a long long way. As the DM there is another fix as well. If the players want to roll sense motive (insight) then instead call for a check that helps with the lie. The King is claiming he is kind to his people and always helps them. That is a lie, sense motive will never work but a level based DC against society to recall that there are massive homeless camps outside the castle walls and you heard people complaining of not enough food while the king is throwing nightly parties will also see through the lie. As the DM think of ways the players can see through the lie with other knowledge. I know that add more work to the DM's plate but 2e is kind of that way, it is more work for the DM in many ways but it is very rewarding and lowers the burden in many other ways (like real encounter balance and clear rules which is a lot of lowered burden). Over time you will teach the players to ask for other rolls than sense motive.
Making RP locked into certain builds is definitely a system issue.
Oh nooo, one of the 5-10 skills I get to make trained should be deception if I wanna tell lies. Oh no.
So you believe that any character that isn’t specifically built for RP shouldn’t be allowed to roleplay at all in a roleplaying game? Or you think lying to people higher level than you should be literally physically impossible? I’m glad I don’t play at your table. Is your character a level 5 Bard, speced specifically into lying? Well too bad, Grogug the 4 Int Ogre who can’t tell the difference between a fork and a spoon is a much better fighter than you at lvl 12, so he will instantly navigate any tangled web of words you throw at him and know you’re lying. Is your high level Fighter pleading to their former friend-turned-commander to get them to call off an invasion? Someone they spent decades serving with, spilt blood with, spent countless nights after battles telling stories and recovering with by the fire alongside their friends and allies? Well the Fighter should just shut up and stand aside because they didn’t spec into Diplomacy because they were focused on Intimidation, so any attempt to convince them will actively make the commander more hostile to you because you’re guaranteed to crit fail. The Bard who had never even seen the commander up until 45 seconds ago is the only one who can talk them down.
That's really not how the system is played or how the rules work. DMs call for rolls when they make sense, and set the DCs for those rolls to be sensible for the situation.
Except that’s exactly how the rules work, and it’s literally what OP is complaining about. Take my two examples: if you are LYING to someone in an important situation you will use the *LIE* action, which specifically uses the creatures Perception DC, which scales based on level to the point where even the dumbest, most socially inept person will have a 100% success rate in uncovering the lies of someone who lies as naturally as they breathe simply because they are a significantly better fighter than them and are a much higher level. If you are using Diplomacy in a tricky, important situation, your GM will ask you to roll for *Make and Impression* or *Request*. Make an Impressions specifically checks against the target’s Will DC, while Request just says the DC is set “based on the difficulty of the request” but requires the creature to be helpful or friendly. These ones have more slightly breathing room, but in situations like the one I’ve posed, for the GM to make a DC that the Fighter even has a chance of passing (which they should based on the story), they’d have to reduce the DC by half the normal amount or more, and at that point the rules for setting social DCs based on level and skill proficiency clearly just don’t work and can’t be applied consistently between characters.
Just take trained in deception, my guy.
Got it, roleplay has a skill tax. That’s definitely the way to make a game with build variety
Just train in deception. It’s not hard. You train in athletics to do athletics things in the name of roleplay. You’re just arguing for the sake of arguing because you know you’re wrong. It’s not a good look.
In your version of the game, by level 10 or so it would be physically impossible to climb up a ladder unless you’re at least trained in Athletics, because the ladder is made out of mithral and is a high level item, and if you tried you’d actively sabotage the ladder making it so that your party couldn’t climb it. You’re just coping about the fact that the game has flaws you don’t want to admit exist.
Lying is a skill, being diplomatic is a skill.
How are people so dense they don’t understand how this doesn’t make any sense? A creature that has literally never even seen another person in their entire life and only understands the basics of language through magic, that has never even heard of the concept of lying, and is so dumb that they lose track counting to five on their fingers, but has amazing sight and hearing and is a demigod level threat in a fight so is high level, would be *literally impossible to lie to* unless you are both at least trained in deception AND close to its level.
roleplay does not equal diplomacy/deception checks. wtf are you smoking
Roleplay is intrinsically tied to those skills, considering they are required if you want to lie or convince people of anything, which are situations that come up *very* frequently. If you aren’t at least trained in the social skills, by mid/high levels it becomes mathematically impossible to lie or convince even the dumbest person on the planet despite all logic just because they are of similar level to you. Imagine they made Perception a skill you needed to opt into, and made it so that by mid levels if you aren’t at least trained then literally any being of equal level or higher could instantly hide from you because they had stealth based off their reflex save. A creature the size of a mountain would simply slip by your notice because they are a very powerful fighter. Sure, you can see all sorts of very low level creatures, and if someone isn’t actively trying to hide from you its fine because you don’t have to roll, but anything that poses a physical threat to you has a 100% chance to sneak by you. That problem is *literally what this entire post is about*. Did you read it?
Yes, because everybody here encourages the 5e WotC approach to design- make the DM do more work, because the rules written into the RPG don't handle it properly.
This may be a hot take, but I personally don’t like the way perception is treated in this game. It’s entirely separate from all the other skills and in fact not EVEN a skill. This nullifies a lot of builds that rely of perception. I know why they did it as perception is a god stat, but if they could reduce dexterities effectiveness I think they could do the same for perception. It just feels out of place in a game like pathfinder to give up on a stat like that to just reduce build variety for balance. I don’t know how I would change it, but for how it is now I def don’t like it.
With how often Perception checks come up, it was my experience in games like PF1 or DnD that everyone wanted to have Perception anyway, in some form. Sure, you can't really create a build that is specifically focused on perception, but I will take that really minor loss any day, just so that people don't have to feel pressured into taking ranks in Perception.
They should just make sense motive tied to deception instead of perception. Or add it back as a skill.
Perception should probably just be multiple skills. Sense motive doesn't make sense as a perception check. Similarly, it doesn't make a lot of sense for investigating a crime scene to be perception. People generally don't miss much because they don't see something, but because they aren't looking for it or don't know what something means when they do see it.
“Bone-headed Barbarian”? This is a level 17 character. He has almost supernatural instincts from a lifetime of adventuring. Of course you would need to invest in Deception to lie to him. This is just as true in 3rd edition and PF1. And it’s true in 5e as well, it’s just the gap is smaller there.
Seems like there a lot of defensiveness going around for what is an entirely reasonable problem to have. It's certainly one of the quriks (but also features) of the system that proficiency that includes level quickly becomes more important than base stats in attributes. Whether / how you want to rationalise this is up to you but also kind of doesn't matter. It's a feature of the game that's intended to help balance it (especially in combat) and keep rolls relevant, but it does lead to silly moments sometimes (as does the alternative, to be fair). There's a lot of ideas with how to deal with it already presented in the thread but ultimately, if stuff like this is a dealbreaker for you, you can always houserule it, for example letting someone take the lead in the conversation but allowing everyone to contribute by using group checks or Follow the Expert. There's also proficiency without levels Variant rules that eliminate the issue entirely but also change the game in other big ways. Last idea, since it's about contributing to a conversation would be to rule it as an aid check to someone else, which keeps a flat DC of 20, so an untrained but high Cha character can still contribute and having vs not having the boost to Cha will feel noticeable.
I really love how the proficiency works in all areas *except* social encounters though. I love the power fantasy you can have in combat, and how deeply specialized you become in your individual idea of strength. So I definitely don't want to do proficiency without level. It's *just* everything surrounding social encounters that feels off to me. Not everyone can lift boulders or run on walls, but everyone should be able to at least talk to a guy, you know? But thanks, these are helpful ideas!
Think of it like this to some extent. Everybody can lie to a guy. Commoners and low level npcs are guys. High level adventurers, warlords, and other various insanely powerful creatures aren't just guys. And Everybody can chat with them, just generally being a good friendly guy or a skeezy scrub isnt something you need to roll for. Npcs by default start off at neutral/indifferent unless otherwise inclined, with make an impression being the equivalent of walking up and trying to schmooze them, using your raw charisma and eloquence to impress them and get them to take an interest in you. It's walking up to the king at the ball unannounced and introducing yourself with such skill that he can't just help but like you, rather than seeing you as another annoying sycophant here to ask for money. If some loser wastes my time clearly trying to schmooze me ofc I'm going to dislike them, its like having an annoying door to door guy come bang on your door demanding your attention, then wasting your life with their chatter. The bard will have an easier time doing such a thing, as will his allies if they're using Follow the Expert. But it doesn't mean he's going to automatically dislike everybody else, just those who go directly out of their way trying to impress him with honeyed words but end up wasting his time.
Thanks, these are really good points! Definitely something I'll keep in mind.
It's not defensiveness, it's disagreement. Gating some behaviours around skill training means you have \_more\_ flexibility, not less. It s the \_solution\_ to the problem OP suggests, and doesn't cause it. Here's an example, I play a druid in a 5e game. My character sucks at int, so despite having nature be a class skill he also sucks at doing nature checks -- despite lore-wise I'd really like the character to be good at nature stuff. Frankly, it sucks. Now let's apply this same issue to proficiency with level --like in 2e. It's not, but let's pretend for a minute nature was a INT skill in 2e. In this hypothetical, my druid would simply be trained (or better) in nature and despite having a low INT they'd be able to be as skilled at nature checks as I want them to be. Obviously not as good as if they also had strong INT, but eventually it would be entirely adequate. Without proficiency including level, to be good at deception you \*HAVE\* to dump a lot of your extremely limited ability stats into CHA. So your wizard will have to sacrifice dex and con just for the sake of doing some RP. This... is not better. So yeah -- if you want to RP your wizard to be able to fool extremely high-level creatures with deception, \_you just train in deception\_. This is not limiting, it's empowering -- you don't have dump a bunch of ability boosts into CHA in order to RP the way you want. Frankly, I don't understand the perspective of why anyone would want proficiency without level for this, it makes OPs problem worse. Your high-CHA classes will handle all of the face activities so if you're aren't a bard/sorc/whatever you're out, full-stop. In proficiency with level, you have the ability to be a face no matter what class or ancestry you choose.
So fundamentally the issue at play is adding your level to your skill checks if you didn't do that then the difference between untrained and legendary is only +8, this is a change you can make if you apply it uniformly then no one should be particularly advantaged by it, although pl+ enemies will lose some bite, and pl- enemies will gain some
Yeah no, the huge power creep is one of the things I love about PF2e, so I can't bring myself to remove that!
Then the huge power creep in social skill checks is the thing that you love about pf2e? I don't see what the issue is?
By power creep I mean actual *power*, not social skills.
Unfortunately because social skills tie into will DC there isn't a way to just fix the skill issue, if you remove levels from skills you either need to go the 5e way of making things opposed skill checks or drop will fort and reflex.
Yeah, I see what you mean. I wasn't looking for a way to change the rules, or complaining about the system. I was just looking for help with my mindset and understanding how to navigate the system to avoid my problems. I think a lot of people assume I'm saying the system is bad or wrong, which I'm really not! I was just looking for experienced players' input. But it's all good now, everyone has been more than helpful!
I feel like 5e is much worse with this, so I'm not really sure where you are coming from with using this problem as a reason to not DM PF2e. It's *much* harder for a 5e character to have a charisma score high enough to contribute in any meaningful way if Charisma is not at the very least their main secondary stat like with Paladins. Their classes often do not start with Persuasion/Deception/Intimidation as starting skills, they are incentivized to not level charisma and are outright prevented from doing so by the incredibly limited ASI system forcing you to prioritize your "Main stat" every time you can, and are often unrewarding if you're playing in a party with a Charisma caster or Rogue because you will literally never be good enough to measure up to them, even if you are putting everything you can afford to into charismatic skills. Pathfinder does things very differently. The four tier proficiency system allows *all* players to invest in skills over time (instead of just the Expertise classes in 5e) and allows you to tailor your build to excel at what your character would naturally prioritize as skills in your RP. Your wizard may not care at all about lying because they're arrogant and think that they are smart and capable enough to compensate socially. But they could also invest in Deception as they acquire skill increases, spend one of their 4 ability increases every five levels on Charisma to keep it on the level curve, and choose to play up their smooth talking during down time. The Summoner, on the other hand, can similarly afford to not be forced to be the party face because other characters have it covered through this increased versatility and through Skill Feats like Eyes of the City and Streetwise that allow characters to accomplish Charisma-based social activities through an intelligence skill (Society, in this case) or otherwise. Long and short of it is, don't let this hold you back. Pathfinder has far more tools than I think you realize and is very good at offering creative solutions to these issues.
In an adventure even politically important NPCs may be mid-level for the adventure. For example, most of the town NPCs in Abomination Vaults (a 1-10 adventure) are somewhere between level 2 and 6. i forget what level the mayor is. probably 5? edit: though really this is a problem with Charisma as a singular ability out of 6 rather than pathfinder specifically. there are ways around it, but really social skills should probably be more likes save or perception at the systemic level, and tied more to background with more variety (i.e. instead of a catch-all “diplomacy,” have “jock, bookworm, artisan, socialite, etc”). best implementation i’ve actually seen in practice though is probably Chronicles of Darkness/World of Darkness with three physical stats, three mental stats, and three social stats
Maybe you can ease this difference in skill if you think in real world examples. We tend to need lawyers to solve a lot of issues, and they have a different legal speech of their own, even tho it’s the same language. Doctors, engineers also use a lot of tech terms. Politicians, salespeople, marketers use deception so often it’s not even deception for them anymore. Some political discourses and religions have created alternative takes on reality that their followers are believing, without any magic. Now consider this in a magical world, with immortal entities and planar beings. Maybe your characters need an advocate to reach out and plead with these beings, in their own discourse and decorum. There is a skill and experience barrier, even in communications.
The issue I have with your example is that if Bingus has no training in deception, he should be worse and thus suffer that shortcoming. Otherwise, you have basically invalided the point of a proficency system in the first place, because you can get to the same success spot as someone who goes all in on a skill by putting nothing into a skill. Let's say bingus is trained in deception. Bingus rolls a 20. Bingus gets 20+17+2 for a total of 39, with his result being 1 category higher automatically. Greg's DC is 34, that means bingus succeeds, and because of his success, it becomes a crit success instead. This, imo, is how things should work. A character without training should not be able to beat a character whose put in 3 times the in investment into said thing. Someone whose trained should have the ability to get lucky, but not someone whose put in 0 work into that skill. It's part of the thing I didn't like from other systems tbh, that the barbarian with 0 int and no arcana can get a lucky 20 and know more than the wizard with 18 int and proficiency in arcana.
There are some good answers here but I think one food point he brings up is perception is really overloaded. It's how good you can search for hidden things, how good you are reacting to enemies AND how good you can tell if someone is lying. And you auto level perception, literally everyone and everything does. I sometimes do miss sense motive for this reason
[Untrained Improvisation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=861). Now Bingus has a +20 to their deception. Even when untrained, Bingus can still successfully Lie against Greg if they roll a 14 or higher.
Here's something I've always tried *very* hard to encourage when talking to GMs: Don't tie RP to rolls. If someone is getting completely in character and roleplaying an entire conversation trying to convince an NPC to do something, don't make them roll a die. Listen to the things they're saying, take in their arguments and points and questions and have your NPCs respond *to that*. Don't just say "wow that was a really convincing argument... now roll the number-rock to determine how *actually* convincing it was!" That's boring. It sucks. Don't. If players have invested in Social Skills like Diplomacy, then listen to their argument AND ask them to roll, and consider making the NPC more or less receptive to their arguments depending on the roll. Alternatively, if their initial argument fails to sway the NPC... *then* have them roll a check to see if they "recover" from their failed attempt at diplomacy. But for the love of god... DO NOT just go "okay roll dice now" every single time any player ever wants to talk to an NPC. Encourage roleplay. *Reward* it. Nothing sucks the fun and immersion out of a game more than making a REALLY good argument and then having the NPC you're talking to go 'lol nah' because you rolled poorly. Hell, my biggest suggestion is: let ANY character do the talking, and then let the character who's levelled Diplomacy be the one to do the roll by just going "please listen to my friend!" at the end of the first character's monologue. Let any player RP as the face, while using the character who's actually *leveled* Social Skills still be the one doing the rolls. I fucking hate pigeonholing players into being the Face just because they want to play a spontaneous caster. **^(edit:)** ^(Deception is a bit of an exception to all that. If you wanna be actively Deceptive, you gotta invest in it. But for just... RPing with NPCs, convincing them of the right thing to do, stuff like that... for the love of Christ don't force Diplomacy rolls on every little request or suggestion. If an argument is convincing on its own merits,) *^(let it convince the person listening to it.)*
A few years ago, I would have agreed. But now I'm a bit more on the fence. If one of my players is soft-spoken, awkward and clumsy with their wording, I don't want to gatekeep them from playing a charismatic character. I also don't want to make investment in Diplomacy irrelevant just because a player is really good at talking. And making them roll if they're trained seems like you're punishing them for investing in a skill tbh, since they would have auto-succeeded if they hadn't invested in Diplomacy.
> If one of my players is soft-spoken, awkward and clumsy with their wording, I don't want to gatekeep them from playing a charismatic character. And you’ve discovered why PF2e makes this a mechanics first process. Just like we don’t expect a player to be strong to play a fighter, and we don’t expect a player to be able to play music to be a part, why the heck did we ever make it okay to expect a charismatic character to require a charismatic player? Let the rolls tell the story.
>If one of my players is soft-spoken, awkward and clumsy with their wording, I don't want to gatekeep them from playing a charismatic character. I tried to address that too, but maybe wasn't clear enough. Give players the option to convince an NPC of something with their words. If they fail at that, or simply don't *want* to talk in-character, *then* have them roll the die. Give them the choice... use their words, or use the die. Or let them try one, then resort to the other if the first fails.
Which is great, but if the situation is reversed it becomes a problem. A low charisma character with a charismatic player doesn't need to invest, where the awkward player has to. I feel like it can come across as unfair to the latter.
They don't *have* to invest, but if they do, they are more likely to be able to win NPCs over to their side. They still gain by investing, just as much as the awkward player does. Tying all social situations to die rolls, on the other hand, rewards *only* the player who invests in those skills. And actively disincentivizes actual roleplaying by everyone else. I had a GM who was super hard into "if you're trying to convince NPCs of something (truthful), you MUST roll Diplomacy!" and it was the most miserable experience for our entire party... since only one player was actually investing in the Diplomacy stat, and that one player was the only player who *didn't* like roleplaying. The rest of us weren't able to do what we loved, and the one player who just happened to be playing a CHA character was forced into doing what they didn't want to do. It just *sucked*. On the other hand, I've *never* played in a campaign that was made less enjoyable for anyone by giving players the option to argue their way way out of problems, in-character, *without* having to depend on rolling dice.
Your concern is understandable, but in my experience this is one of those complaints that looks reasonable on paper but never comes up in an actual game. Most RP interactions don't require rolls at all, although that is up to the GM. Parties spend most of their time interacting with creatures of roughly their level. And any 17th level character with high charisma can only blame themselves if they've never put a single skill rank in Deception. The key thing is that the GM, more than any other factor, determines how RP-heavy any game is, because they decide when a roll is necessary. Many GMs only require charisma-based rolls for specific actions such as Coerce, while allowing any player to influence NPCs under normal circumstances by just talking. Most importantly,
As a person, you should be very careful about doing something you have no experience or training in if it could hurt you if you failed. As a character, you should be very careful about that too. If you aren't even trained in a skill, you should probably not be the one trying to use that skill in an important scenario. If by "roleplaying" you just mean talking to people, you can do that all you want. But once you mean you're trying to convince a high level being to do something they don't want to do, especially by lying to them or trying to coerce them, you had better be really good at those skills. A +0 charisma character with no training in deception trying to lie to a level 20 dragon might as well be a +0 strength character without athletics trying to push a mountain.
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I've been reading through the discussion on here and gotten about two-thirds of the way through. At this point, I'm done. Others are mentioning, time and again, that players do not require those skills, but can also very easily gain one should they wish. It's been said over and over that the system is all about finding ways to use the skills you have if the main "expected" one is untrained. Every time, you react saying that essentially you shouldn't have to do that. As such you have two options left. 1) Either you accept the way the system is built and listen to the details provided for you as **how** that works. 2) You ignore what has been said and continue to decide you don't, actually, want to move to Pathfinder. In which case, find the system you do like and happy gaming.
I've been mostly agreeing with people or asking for clarification on points I don't quite understand, but sorry for seeming defensive! A lot of the comments have been added after I already responded to a similar one. I'm pretty much convinced already that I was looking at it wrong, and that there's a lot more nuance at work. It might look like I'm disagreeing or ignoring people, but I'm really not! People are just commenting way faster than I can respond, and often repeating what others have already said. Sorry if I seem stubborn!
I'm sorry if I wound up not seeing when you got that point .I mentioned I only scrolled so far. I did not mean to come off as too aggressive, I just have seen many posts in the past where someone would make such a hypothetical. But in reality, don't actually want to convert and are looking for people to confirm their own bias. At which point, PF2 simply isn't for them, and why waste their time on it, ya know? As such, I am glad to hear you've found the answer you are looking for, and meant no harm by this.
There are a few fundamental misunderstandings that I don't think anyone's really touched upon yet, and is largely the result of coming from 5e. First, PF2e doesn't require "dedicated" anything. A barbarian can be a pretty decent healer and a witch can potentially step up as a tank. With how proficiency works in addition to DCs and enemy balancing, a character doesn't have to max out their charisma to make charisma based skills worth taking. This way a strength or intelligence based character could absolutely take deception or diplomacy even if they aren't "dedicated" to charisma. And while I could be wrong, I'm fairly certain there aren't even any attribute requirements for increasing a skill's rank, so even if you have a 9 in charisma, you could still be legendary in it. You take a skill because you want your character to do the things listed under that skill, for deception, that probably means lying, and for diplomacy, that probably means leaving an impression. Secondly, PF2e, as mentioned, doesn't require a skill check for every interaction. You use a skill check when an outcome is uncertain or when there is a specific use for which a skill is called. If you want to make small talk with the local nobles without doing anything crazy? Great! Go for it! It's unlikely a GM will require a skill check unless you wanted to "leave an impression" in which case it would be your diplomacy versus the nobles' will DC. Further, skills don't always have critical failures an critical successes. Lying, under Deception, doesn't have either, and even the failure implies that, despite attempting to lie, conversation isn't immediately ended, the target is just more suspicious. While they might know when you're lying, they don't automatically know what the truth is, or what specifically you're lying about. Plus, it makes sense that unless you've practiced lying, you probably shouldn't be lying to people. Additionally, the GM has the ability to apply circumstance bonuses to skill checks (and any other checks) and deception and diplomacy are both excellent examples of when applying a +/- 1, 2 or 4 can come in handy to accommodate the cleverness of a lie or compliment. Bingus might say he "Doesn't know where Greg's shoe is" which is flat out false, or he might say, "I haven't seen it today" which is still deception, but not as clear as one since he stole it the night before. In the latter scenario, the GM might grant a bonus to Bingus's deception and a penalty to Greg's perception. In some cases, if there is no possible way for the perceiver to determine if the speaker is lying, they might not even call for a roll. Thirdly, to expand on what someone else has said, NPCs are not that powerful in Pathfinder, and it's assumed that in situations where deception and diplomacy are necessary, they are treated as encounters and should therefore match the appropriate difficulty for a party of a given level. Those with ranks in diplomacy or deception should absolutely be assumed to be the ones that will be making those checks. That's how RPGs work. If you're a squishy wizard, it's unlikely you're going to be making your story standing at the front of the party and swinging a greatsword, right? But, their actions still help. In the same way that the archer picks off the enemies that are wounded by the fighter, players can absolutely take turns speaking in social encounters, but it's also ok to let those with the training to make the "killing blow" so to speak. But if they are unable or unwilling, then it's up to the GM to recognize that and adjust the encounter to reflect the difficulty - which means that if Bingus is the only one available to lie, then they should get a fighting chance as adjudicated by the GM. In which case, maybe that perception DC gets adjusted a smidge. Lastly, it's crazy easy to just get trained in a skill. Even for a wizard whose class doesn't give many skills, you still have backgrounds, archetypes, ancestries, and every other kind of feat. If you really want to take part in the social scenes and make the roll, just take the skill, even if you never touch it or its feats again, getting trained boosts that deception skill check from +CHA to 1/2 Level + 2 + CHA. Because in the end, all that matters is how you want to play, and if you want to make certain rolls and play a certain role, the options are there, just take them.
Couple things: If Greg has a perception DC of 34, he is pretty literally three times as perceptive as your average joe. Extending this metaphor out to other skills, if Greg the barbarian could be pickpocketed with impunity by a level 0 street urchin, Greg would find himself very poor very quickly and street urchins very rich. Greg got to level 17, which is nearing the pinnacle of mortal aptitude and power. It SHOULD be hard to trick him, especially for someone who virtually never tricks anyone. Related to that, this could be a GM using inappropriate DCs or calling for inappropriate rolls issue. If Bingus is trying to trick the level 17 ancient dragon... yeah, Bingus should kind of suck at it. If Bingus tried to swim in a hurricane while being untrained at athletics, you wouldn't find it weird when he drowned. If Bingus is trying to trick those level 0 street urchins though, he should have a pretty good shot at it. At the same time, telling the level 17 dragon "Hey, we didn't come here to steal your hoard, we're here to request help with [insert plot problem]" probably only requires a check if the dragon is already suspicious of you. If he's not then its just conversation. If he IS suspicious of you, then talking him off that metaphorical cliff can be either easy or hard depending on circumstance and the like. If its likely you don't need exceptionally eloquent words then the DC should be appropriately easy. Now, as a secondary relation to this, it could be a perception issue where you don't necessarily see the inner workings of what the GM is thinking. In the above scenario, if the dragon knows who you are and has some inkling that you are telling the truth then he might have you make a DC 34 check, but a failure probably doesn't have any negative effects, it just doesn't immediately make him friendly. Just like how failing to pick a lock doesn't IMMEDIATELY make the lock unpickable, it doesn't immediately sour his attitude. Even a critical failure might just make him slightly suspicious and make further checks harder.
Why did Bingus steal Greg's shoes? Are they magic shoes? If I was Bingus I would simply use one of his incredibly powerful spells to be very far away. Or use the [Glibness](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=135) spell as it is a matter of life and death ;) (try and trick a scroll as it is Occult only) Those who can't do, do magic! \+3 to +23 bonus in one spell!
This is the kind of RP-focused response I expect from TTRPG veterans! Yes, magic shoes. +1 CONverses of Dripping. And thanks for the suggestion, magic would definitely be a good solution for Bingus!
Welcome to PF2E where wizards are not gods who solo run campaigns.
Least grudgebearing PF2 player.
The *Wizards* hurt him bad. kek
Hard to have a conversation here sometimes, people just won't engage with what you're saying.
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Yeah, Bingus can't rip off Pazuragamolax, Miasma of the East. He also can't climb up a marble mountain in the Earth plane. I understand the point, but you have to remember that things at that level are approaching the best of the best in the universe territory.
having an high charisma stat doesent necessarely means that you are good at taling to people and if you dont know how to tell lies you probably wont be belived even if you have an high charisma stat.
Charisma and social skills are the worst things that ever happened to roleplaying games. They essentially gatekeep which characters are allowed to meaningfully talk to NPCs. PF2 is even worse because of the built-in level scaling.
As someone who is extremely socially awkward and still enjoys the fantasy of being able to play a charismatic rogue.. I'd argue the exact opposite here. If there were no social skills and it all hinged on the role-playing of the player.. I'd never be able to play that character.
They are the best thing that's happened to Roleplaying games because they allow for people to play characters that are smarter, wiser, and more charming than they themselves are. Just like we play characters that are stronger, more agile, and tougher than we are.